This tour through cheese history intersects with some of the pivotal periods in human prehistory and ancient, classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern history that have shaped western civilization, for these periods also shaped the lives of cheesemakers and the diverse cheeses that they developed. The book offers a useful lens through which to view our twenty-first century attitudes toward cheese that we have inherited from our past, and our attitudes about the food system more broadly.
This refreshingly original book will appeal to anyone who loves history, food, and especially good cheese. Score: 5. This edition includes new historiographical sections along with updated scholarship and new images.
Western Civilization Author : Margaret L. This text explains why Western civilization is worth knowing about. It takes a consistently topical approach, stressing social and cultural themes in conjunction with the political narrative, and incorporates significant discussion of peoples and civilizations outside the boundaries of the West. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of , when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order.
Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization.
In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder.
Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature. Not only does its length and price separate this text from the competition, but its no-frills, uncluttered format and well-written, one-authored approach make it a valuable asset for every history student. Unlike other textbooks that pile on dates and facts, Shaping is a more coherent and interpretive presentation.
Burger's skills as writer and synthesizer will enable students to obtain the background required to ask meaningful questions of primary sources. In addition to suggestions for further reading, this overview includes over 50 images and 22 maps. Updated with recent scholarship, the Tenth Edition retains many popular features, including comparative timelines, full-color art essays, and primary source excerpts in each chapter. New technology resources, including CourseMate with interactive eBook, make learning more engaging and instruction more efficient.
In addition to suggestions for further reading, this overview includes over 40 images and 14 maps. Popular Books. Fear No Evil by James Patterson. As the author acknowledges, history courses on this topic will vary in many respects. The advantage of this free open resource three-volume text is that it can be easily assigned in smaller parts, depending on the individual circumstances of the class.
In addition to chronological divisions, the text is also broken down by historical era e. In general, chapters do not overtly depend on previous chapters for the reader's full comprehension of the material. The organization of the text is generally logical and clear, following common divisions and periodization of other textbooks, with some exceptions. Each volume of the series contains the same series introduction.
Each chapter includes a clear introduction section and a concluding summary that reiterates important themes. The chapters are broken down into many thematic sections some only a few paragraphs long , each with a clearly visible heading and appropriate section titles.
These should aid with easy navigation of the text, although a glossary and index are much needed. Visuals include maps e. The introductions to the 3-volume series contains multiple grammatical errors that distract from the text. Other chapters of the volumes, however, seemed more thoroughly proofread for errors.
Cultural relevance is a real strength of this text. I would recommend using this text in combination with supplemental texts that can deepen students' comprehension of individual regions, give voice to individual lives outside the realm of political history , and target thematic issues specific to each instructor's syllabus.
While the text covers a significant span of time it does not give critical depth and context to significant events.
One example is the lack of focus on the political background prior to and during the Reformation. This is a significant omission Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less. This is a significant omission and one that robs the historical record of depth and accuracy. Additionally, the text does not contain an index or glossary, making it difficult to reference specific locations. The content of this text is somewhat accurate.
Accuracy suffers when broad, general statements are made in place of specific details regarding individuals or events. Statements such as this are frequently made throughout the text and do not adequately provide the information necessary to understand the individuals or events presented. Although the author states his intention to provide a text for history students with little to no prior history coursework, there are historical references that are not generally known and for which no context or explanation are provided.
The material in the text is not presented in the most logical order. Essential background information is given near the end of the section and would have been valuable to understanding the events presented at the beginning of the section.
The text contains frequent punctuation errors and occasional grammar errors. These errors disrupt and confuse the flow of narrative.
This text provides a basic framework for a Western Civilization course, but an instructor would need to address its grammar and content issues, as well as other issues mentioned above, before assigning chapters to students. The text is comprehensive and manages to cover in at least some detail all the topics one would expect in a Western Civ survey—partly this is achieved through the three-volume format.
The accuracy of the text is a two-fold issue. Regarding the details and sometimes the basic features of institutions, systems, and peoples, the results are more mixed. The first revision of ancient science had actually come during the Abbasid period, and Muslim, Christian, and Jewish medieval scientists had pushed far past the boundaries of ancient science by the early s. The relevance of the text is a complicated issue.
In many chapters, however, there is relatively little to suggest the last fifteen years of scholarship on the issues, and little to suggest to students that the study of history is one of motion, one that is constantly in a state of tension, revision, and re-revision of interpretations over contested historical facts.
Clarity is not an issue—the writing style is both engaging and largely free from jargon, with terms being explained in the text. The text is internally consistent—there is a single authorial voice and point of view throughout both volumes that translates into a unified whole.
Repeating the introduction in each volume of the series helps to reinforce this single vision. Although the text is arranged in PDFs across three parts, rather than two as is more common in Western Civ courses, nothing prevents picking and choosing different chapters as needed for the course. The chapters themselves all contain several sections indicated by subheadings. The interface is clean, with no observable distortion of images or text in the entire document. There are on average maps and images per chapter, drawn from open sources.
The text seems to avoid problematic terminology for the most part. That is, the text largely remains descriptive rather than necessarily analytical, and generally maintains a European perspective.
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