Top
Free Shipping On Orders Over $35!
Get Rewarded for Ordering Your Textbooks! Enroll Now
Customer Reviews Read Reviews
Write a Review
In 1600 Europe’s greatest power complex was the Holy Roman Empire, which was in league with Spain. By the eighteenth century, however, the European state system was transformed so drastically that the great powers were Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. This essay traces this significant shift in the balance of power.
Mercantilism was the practice of measuring a country’s wealth by how much gold and silver bullion it could amass. This theory was challenged by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, who belived that economies worked best when they had the least government interference.
A poison scandal erupted in 1679 at the court of Louis XIV, which touched the king, his mistress Madame de Montespan, and several ministers of the court. Reggie Oliver investigates the scandal and its results.
The East India Company proved to be one of the longest commercial enterprises ever undertaken in Britain. It was chartered in 1600 and finally dissolved after 1857. It was charged with the commercial exploitation and defense in a large part of India. What brought about its demise was excessive administrative costs and charges of misrule.
John Locke’s influence in both England and colonial America is detailed by Edward Cline. Locke’s essays contained ideas on constitutional government and laid the groundwork for the separation of state and religion.
Descartes advanced, even epitomized, rationalism. Anthony Grafton explains why this seventeenth-century thinker seems modern three and one-half centuries after his death.
Esmond Wright details how the philosopher-scientist Benjamin Franklin spent 17 years in London and had respect and admiration for everything British and hoped for a colonial or governmental post. Yet, when the American Revolution occurred, Franklin wrote with pride about the possibilities of America.
Were the earliest alchemists complete charlatans or the forerunners of modern chemistry? The authors state that the alchemists’ goal was to find the Philosopher’s Stone, a mysterious substance through which gold traveled to Earth’s surface. They also searched for a universal solvent (alkabest), which could dissolve all substances, and an elixir of life, which would cure all diseases.
A belief that progress was developing in economics, science, and manufacturing became the byword for the eighteenth-century English Englightenment writers. None was more prominent than Erasmus Darwin’s poem, Zoonomia, which united the arts, sciences, medicine, and technology in praise of enlightened values.
Although the Enlightenment was supposed to eliminate all superstition, Owen Davies reports that many still believed in witches well into the nineteenth century. Illnesses, famines, jealousy, and gossip still provided sources of accusations.
Many people paid the price for the French Revolution. One was France’s greatest scientist, Antoine Lavoisier. A proponent of some of the Revolution’s early accomplishments, the famous chemist ran afoul of the Committee of Public Safety and its revolutionary tribunals. Stephen Jay Gould cites Lavoisier’s accomplishments and ponders why in revolutionary times even a brilliant scientist was not immune from political extremists.
Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), cogently argued that the ideals of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution should be extended to women. This is her story.
Catherine the Great has been seen as a usurper of the Russian throne, murderer of her husband, Peter III, and promiscuous in her lovers. Isabel de Madariaga says that Catherine was a very hard-working monarch, greatly interested in a well-organized government and the welfare of her subjects.
When Napoleon seized power in 1799 and established his empire in 1804, he swept away many ideas of the French Revolution and reverted to the ideas, manners, and costumes of the Old Regime. Philip Mansel contends that most monarchs feared rather than applauded Napoleon as a fellow ruler.
Richard Arkwright (1732–1792), inventor and entrepreneur, is given much of the credit for Britain’s leadership in the Industrial Revolution during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Author Karen Fisk raises questions about his accomplishments.
Eighteenth-century contemporaries wrote that it was the determination and skills of the Prussian kings who militarized the Prussian state and society. With new German archives at his disposal, Peter Wilson says that it was the successful wars of German unification in 1866 and 1871 that brought about militarism.
Although the British were not its originators, by the mid-eighteenth century they dominated the Atlantic slave trade. This trade was part of the global exchange of goods that added to the “greatness” of England. James Walvin examines the economic and social consequences of this trade.
As Christine Lalumia points out, most of our Christmas traditions, such as carols and trees, have been around for centuries. It was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who stressed family values and Charles Dickens’s emphasis on sharing with the less fortunate that made Christmas one of the biggest yearly celebrations in Britain.
As Prime Minister Francesco Crispi introduced public health and welfare services, he felt that involving Italy in a great war would create a great feeling of partriotism. His ideas were later taken over by the Italian Fascists.
David van Biema details the controversy that arose when the Roman Catholic Church decided to beatify, or recognize Pope Pius IX as a candidate for sainthood.
John Marriott examines how writers viewed the poor, from the seventeenth century through the Victorian era, and how they described the poor as a race apart.
The most sensational murder cases of the nineteenth century occurred in London in 1888: five working-class prostitutes were gruesomely slashed to death. William Rubinstein discusses the possible identity of the first serial murderer, Jack the Ripper.
In Victorian England, hunting of exotic game came to symbolize imperialism in the nineenth century. But as wild game disappeared, the view that they were to be exploited as rewards of imperialism was replaced by one that viewed game as a valuable resource to be protected.
Born in 1844, Sarah Bernhardt was a sickly child and not expected to live. But live she did, and she grew to become the first worldwide “superstar diva,” making her reputation as a great tragedienne, mistress of nobles, and political activist.
Drawing inspiration from many sources—Japanese, Islamic, femmes fatales, and the Arts and Crafts movement—Art Nouveau used botanicals, arabesques, and curves. Its influence spread from Europe to America where architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and artists such as Louis Comfort Tiffany employed the style. Yet, the vogue was over by the first decade of the twentieth century when artists such as Picasso declared that it was not modern enough.
When the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914, no one knew that it would precipitate World War I. David DeVoss discusses the details of the assassination and how Princip is remembered today.
The long-awaited collapse of the Ottoman Empire finally occurred in 1918. World War I and the Arab uprising paved the way for a new era in the Middle East. But it was the British, not the Arabs, who played the central role in the reshaping of the geopolitics of the region.
Lisa Pine explains how Germany’s National Socialist dictatorship brought political correctness—Nazi-style—to German schoolchildren. The new curriculum featured pseudoscience, racial and gender stereotypes, distorted history, Aryan pride, and political arithmetic.
Before World War II, the United States was the major oil supplier to Japan. When Japan and Russia signed the nonaggression Pact of 1941 and the Japanese moved into French Indochina, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered all Japanese assets frozen and embargoed oil exports. Charles Maechling details the actions and reactions of each government in the move to war.
When Adolf Hitler overpowered Western Europe, he expected Britain to submit, but one man, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, arose to reject surrender and eventually lead his country to victory. John Keegan details Churchill’s life as a politician, war leader, and Noble Prize–winning author.
For much of the twentieth century, the United States was a great hegemonic power with global military commitments—an economic dynamo, a magnet for immigration, and an unparalled cultural force. But now with the start of the new millennium, historians and other social analysts suggest that the nation may be in decline. Donald White considers recent assessments of America’s condition.
Albert Einstein was chosen as Time’s “Man of the Twentieth Century” because of his theory of relativity. Stephen Hawking summarizes Einstein’s contributions, which challenged Issac Newton’s universe and transformed physics forever.
Donovan Webster says that until recently the affluent countries of the world paid little attention to malaria, which affects 40 percent of the world’s population. With cases now appearing in the United States, the West should revaluate the danger and take steps to prevent the disease from spreading.
Scientists have observed a warming trend in the Arctic region. The difference in temperatures between the tropics and the Arctic drives the global climate system. If glacial ice melts quickly, it could cover the denser sea water and that might drastically drop temperatures, plunging Europe and North America into an Ice Age.
The idea of a tropical rain forest is a twentieth-century development, derived from the German romantic myth that sees the Earth as the last Eden, only vulnerable to human greed. Most would be shocked to learn that forests are the exception in the world and that rain forests are less than 12,000 years old.
In the wake of September 11, 2001, Stanley Hoffmann explores the factors that have led to various strands of anti-Americanism around the globe. He also suggests ways of addressing legitimate grievances against the contemporary world’s sole superpower.
Although Otto von Bismarck said that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier, for 200 years the major European powers have intervened in the region. The results of this interference created small, weak states while neglecting differing religions, ethnic identities, and rising nationalism. This has led to the difficult situations that now confront the West.
Why are some countries richer than others? The issues of economic growth and national development are attracting the attention of contemporary economists. Here is a survey of their findings.
Boris Nemtsov surveys the various reforms in Russia and writes that, while some political, economic, and legal rights might be curtailed in the short term, in the long term Russia needs time to develop.
Peter Waldron explains that while Europe in the twentieth century had terrible wars, massive civilian deaths, and violent dictatorships, there were many signs of progress. Public health, social insurance, literacy, and the transformation of women’s lives were all a part of this progress.
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
Need Help? Copyright © 1999-2024