A World History

by William H. McNeill

Book Overview

Global in scope, William McNeill's widely acclaimed one-volume history emphasizes the four Old World civilizations of the Middle East, India, China, and Europe, paying particular attention to their interaction across time as well as the impact on historical scholarship in light of the mostrecent archaeological discoveries. The engaging and informative narrative touches on all aspects of civilization, including geography, communication, and technological...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195025547
• ISBN13: 9780195025545
• Release Date: August 1979
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 2.19 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An excellent, well-written single volume world history.

McNeil is an old-fashioned narrative historian whose most famous book is Rise of the West. This book adopts a similar broad approach to world history. It makes an excellent gift for college students and young adult who want to lay a base for historical understanding.

A Very Readable Survey

I've been trying to read a survey of World History for years, but found most of the commonly available titles too dry and slow to get trough. McNeill did an admirable job of combining the history of eastern and western civilizations chronologically, and I can say that it's a great place to start if you're looking for an overview. Of course, it's light on many subjects as is necessary due to its size, and yes it's somewhat dated. However, I don't think you'll find a more readable survey.

Not bad as a starter.

Organization of the book is good especially on the flow of history. However, many things are not clearly explained and kind of skip over it. For important events too shallow, not much detailed, but did cover lots of stuff so people can later google or wikipedia on the info or read others books. In short a good starter book.