Patterns of World History Brief Third Edition, Volume One to 1600

Patterns of World History, Brief Third Edition, offers a distinct framework for understanding the global past through the study of origins, interactions, and adaptations. Authors Peter von Sivers, Charles A. Desnoyers, and George B. Stow examine the full range of human ingenuity over time and space in a comprehensive, even-handed, and critical fashion.


Approximately twenty-five percent shorter than the highly acclaimed comprehensive text, this Brief Third Edition features a streamlined and tightened narrative. With prices starting at $24.95 per split volume, the Brief Third Edition is one of the least expensive full-color world history textbooks available. It is also available as an embedded eBook with OUP's online learning and assessment platform, Oxford Learning Cloud.

Peter von Sivers is Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah.

Charles A. Desnoyers is Professor of History and Director of Asian Studies at La Salle University.

George B. Stow is Professor of History and the Director of the Graduate Program in History at La Salle University.

Maps
Studying with Maps
Preface
Note on the Dates and Spellings
About the Authors

PART ONE: From Human Origins to Early Agricultural Centers, Prehistory-600 BCE

Chapter 1. The African Origins of Humanity, Prehistory-10,000 BCE
The Origins of Humanity
-Hominins: No Longer Chimpanzees but Not Yet Human
Human Adaptations: From Africa to Eurasia and Australia
-The African Origins of Human Culture
-Migration from South Asia to Australia
-Migration from Asia to Europe
The Ice Age Crisis and Human Migration to the Americas
-The Ice Age
Patterns Up Close: The Disappearance of Neanderthals
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: The Hobbits of Flores Island

Chapter 2. Agrarian-Urban Centers of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, 11,500-600 BCE
Agrarian Origins in the Fertile Crescent, ca. 11,500-1500 BCE
-Sedentary Foragers and Foraging Farmers
-The Origin of Urban Centers in Mesopotamia and Egypt
Patterns Up Close: Babylonian Law Codes
Interactions among Multiethnic and Multireligious Empires, ca. 1500-600 BCE
-The Hittite and Assyrian Empires, 1600-600 BCE
-Small Kingdoms on the Imperial Margins, 1600-600 BCE
Religious Experience and Cultural Achievements
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Akhenaten the Transgressor

Chapter 3. Shifting Agrarian Centers in India, 3000-600 BCE
The Vanished Origins of Harappa, 3000-1500 BCE
-The Region and People
-Adapting to Urban Life in the Indus Valley
-The Collapse of the Cities
Interactions in Northern India, 1500-600 BCE
-The Vedic World, 1750-800 BCE
-Statecraft and the Ideology of Power, 800-600 BCE
Patterns Up Close:-The Caste System
Indian Society, Culture, and Religion, 1500-600 BCE
-Society and Family in Ancient India
-Cultural Interactions to 600 BCE
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: A Merchants' Empire?

Chapter 4. Agrarian Centers and the Mandate of Heaven in Ancient China, 5000-481 BCE
The Origins of Yellow River Cultures, 5000-1766 BCE
-Geography and Climate
-The Origins of Neolithic Cultures
-The Age of Myth and the Xia Dynasty, 2852-1766 BCE
The Interactions of Shang and Zhou History and Politics, 1766-481 BCE
-The Shang Dynasty, 1766-1122 BCE
-The Mandate of Heaven: The Zhou Dynasty to 481 BCE
Patterns Up Close: The Chinese Writing System
Economy, Society, and Family Adaptation in Ancient China
-Shang Society
-Interactions of Zhou Economy and Society
-Gender and the Family
Interactions of Religion, Culture, and Intellectual Life in Ancient China
-Oracle Bones and Early Chinese Writing
-Adaptations of Zhou Religion, Technology, and Culture
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Women's Voices

Chapter 5: Origins Apart: The Americas and Oceania, 30,000-600 BCE
The Americas: Hunters and Foragers, 30,000-600 BCE
-The Environment
-Human Migrations
Agriculture, Villages, and Urban Life
-The Neolithic Revolution in the New World
-The Origins of Urban Life
Patterns Up Close: The Origin of Corn
-The First Mesoamerican Settlements
-Foraging and Farming Societies Outside the Andes and Mesoamerica
The Origins of Pacific Island Migrations
-Lapita and Cultural Origins
-Creating Polynesia
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Thor Heyerdahl

PART TWO: The Age of Empires and Visionaries, 600 BCE-600 CE

Chapter 6. Chiefdoms and Early States in Africa and the Americas, 600 BCE-600 CE
Agriculture and Early African Kingdoms
-Saharan Villages, Towns, and Kingdoms
-The Kingdom of Aksum
The Spread of Villages in Sub-Saharan Africa
-West African Savanna and Rain-Forest Agriculture
-The Spread of Village Life to East and South Africa
-Patterns of African History, 600 BCE-600 CE
Early States in Mesoamerica: Maya Kingdoms and Teotihuacán
-The Maya Kingdoms in Southern Mesoamerica
-The Kingdom of Teotihuacán in the Mexican Basin
Patterns Up Close: The Mayan Ball Game
The Andes: Moche and Nazca
-The Moche in Northern Peru
-Paracas and the Nazca in Southern Peru
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Nazca Lines and Speculation

Chapter 7. Innovation and Adaptation in Western Eurasia: Persia, Greece, and Rome, 550 BCE-600 CE
Interactions between Persia and Greece
-The Origins of the Achaemenid Persian Empire
-Greek City-States in the Persian Shadow
-Alexander's Empire and Its Successor Kingdoms
Interactions between the Persian and Roman Empires
-Parthian Persia and Rome
-The Sasanid Persian and Late Roman Empires
Patterns Up Close: The Plague of Justinian
Adaptations to Monotheism and Monism in the Middle East
-Challenge to Polytheism: The Origins of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Greek Philosophy
-Toward Religious Communities and Philosophical Schools
The Beginnings of Science and the Cultures of Kings and Citizens
-The Sciences at the Library of Alexandria
-Royal Persian Culture and Arts
-Greek and Roman Civic Culture and Arts
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Women in Democratic Athens

Chapter 8. Empires and Visionaries in India, 600 BCE-600 CE
Patterns of State Formation in India: Republics, Kingdoms, and Empires
-The Road to Empire: The Mauryas
-The Classical Age: The Gupta Empire
-The Southern Kingdoms, ca. 300-600 CE
The Vedic Tradition and Its Visionary Reformers
-Reforming the Vedic Tradition
-The Maturity of Hinduism: From the Abstract to the Devotional
Stability amid Disorder: Economics, Family, and Society
-Tax and Spend: Economics and Society
-Caste, Family Life, and Gender
Patterns Up Close: The Global Trade of Indian Pepper
Strength in Numbers: Art, Literature, and Science
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: India's Ancient Republics

Chapter 9. China: Imperial Unification and Perfecting the Moral Order, 722 BCE-618 CE
-Confucianism, Legalism, and Daoism
-The Qin Dynasty
-The Han Dynasty
Patterns Up Close: The Stirrup
The Domestic Economy: Society, Family, and Gender
-Industry and Commerce
-Gender Roles
Intellectual Trends, Aesthetics, Science, and Technology
-Confucianism, Education, and History during the Han
-Buddhism in China
-Intellectual Life
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Yang Zhu and Mo Di

PART THREE: The Formation of Religious Civilizations, 600-1450 CE

Chapter 10. Islamic Civilization and Byzantium, 600-1300 CE
The Formation of Islamic Religious Civilization
-The Beginnings of Islam
-Islamic Theology, Law, and Politics
Eastern Christian Civilization in Byzantium
-Byzantium's Difficult Beginnings
-The Seljuk Invasion and the Crusades
Islamic and Eastern Christian Civilizations at Their Height
-State and Society in Mamluk Egypt
-Byzantine Provincial and Central Organization
-Commercial Relations from the Atlantic to the South China Sea
Religion, Sciences, and the Arts in Two Religious Civilizations
-Islamic Culture: Intellectual and Scientific Expressions
-Artistic Expressions in Islamic Civilization
-Learning and the Arts in Byzantium
Patterns Up Close: Byzantine Icons and Islamic Miniatures
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Did Ibn Taymiyya "Have a Screw Loose"?

Chapter 11. Innovation and Adaptation in the Western Christian World, 600-1450 CE
The Formation of Christian Europe, 600-1000
-Frankish Gaul and Latin Christianity
Recovery, Reform, and Innovation, 1000-1300
-The Political Recovery of Europe
-The Economic and Social Recovery of Europe
-Religious Reform and Expansion
Patterns Up Close: The Gothic Cathedral
-Intellectual and Cultural Developments
Crisis and Creativity, 1300-1415
-The Calamitous Fourteenth Century
-Signs of a New Era in the Fifteenth Century
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: The Cathar Heresy

Chapter 12. Contrasting Patterns in India, China, and Inner Asia, 600-1600 CE
India: The Clash of Cultures
-Buddhist and Hindu India after the Guptas
-Islam in India, 711-1398
-Toward the Mughal Era, 1398-1450
Interactions and Adaptations: From Buddhism to Neo-Confucian Synthesis in China
-Creating a Religious Civilization under the Tang
-The Song and the Mongol Super-Empire, 960-1368
Patterns Up Close: Gunpowder
-The Ming to 1450: The Quest for Stability
-Society, Family, and Gender
-Perceptions of Perfection: Intellectual, Scientific, and Cultural Life
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Empress Wu

Chapter 13. Religious Civilizations Interacting: Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, 550-1500 CE
Korea to 1450: Innovation from Above
-People and Place: The Korean Environment
-Conquest and Competition: History and Politics to 1598
-Economy, Society, and Family
-Religion, Culture, and Intellectual Life
Japan to 1450: Selective Interaction and Adaptation
-The Island Refuge
-Adaptation at Arm's Length: History and Politics
Patterns Up Close: Printing
-Economy, Society, and Family
-Religion, Culture, and Intellectual Life
Vietnam: Human Agency and State Building
-The Setting and Neolithic Cultures
-Economy, Society, and Family
-Religion, Culture, and Intellectual Life
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Zen and Bushido

Chapter 14. Patterns of State Formation in Africa, 600-1450 CE
Christians and Muslims in the Northeast
-Nubia in the Middle Nile Valley
-Ethiopia in the Eastern Highlands
Adaptation to Islam: City-States and Kingdoms in East and Southern Africa
-The Swahili City-States on the East African Coast
-Traditional Kingdoms in Southern and Central Africa
-Central African Chiefdoms and Kingdoms
Cultural Encounters: West African Traditions and Islam
-The Kingdom of Ancient Ghana
-The Empire of Mali
Patterns Up Close: The Sculptures of Ife
-Rain-Forest Kingdoms
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Sundiata's Rise to Power

Chapter 15. The Rise of Empires in the Americas, 600-1550 CE
The Legacy of Teotihuacán and the Toltecs in Mesoamerica
-Militarism in the Mexican Basin
-Late Maya States in Yucatán
The Legacy of Tiwanaku and Wari in the Andes
-The Expanding State of Tiwanaku
-The Expanding City-State of Wari
American Empires: Aztec and Inca Origins and Dominance
-The Aztec Empire of Mesoamerica
-The Inca Empire of the Andes
Imperial Society and Culture
-Imperial Capitals: Tenochtitlán and Cuzco
-Power and Its Cultural Expressions
Patterns Up Close: Human Sacrifice and Propaganda
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Amazon Rain Forest Civilizations

PART FOUR: Interactions across the Globe, 1450-1750

Chapter 16. Western European Overseas Expansion and the Ottoman-Habsburg Struggle, 1450-1650
The Muslim-Christian Competition in the East and West, 1450-1600
-Iberian Christian Expansion, 1415-1498
-Rise of the Ottomans and Struggle with the Habsburgs for Dominance, 1300-1609
Patterns Up Close: Shipbuilding
The Centralizing State: Origins and Interactions
-State Transformation, Money, and Firearms
Imperial Courts, Urban Festivities, and the Arts
-The Ottoman Empire: Palaces, Festivities, and the Arts
-The Spanish Habsburg Empire: Popular Festivities and the Arts
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Tilting at Windmills

Chapter 17. The Renaissance, New Sciences, and Religious Wars in Europe, 1450-1750
Cultural Transformations: Renaissance, Baroque, and New Sciences
-The Renaissance and Baroque Arts
-The New Sciences
-The New Sciences and Their Social Impact
-The New Sciences: Philosophical Interpretations
Centralizing States and Religious Upheavals
-The Rise of Centralized Kingdoms
Patterns Up Close: Mapping the World
-The Protestant Reformation, State Churches, and Independent Congregations
-Religious Wars and Political Restoration
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: The Digger Movement

Chapter 18. New Patterns in New Worlds: Colonialism and Indigenous Responses in the Americas, 1500-1800
The Colonial Americas: Europe's Warm-Weather Extension
-The Conquest of Mexico and Peru
-The Establishment of Colonial Institutions
The Making of American Societies: Origins and Transformations
-Exploitation of Mineral and Tropical Resources
Patterns Up Close: The Columbian Exchange
-Social Strata, Castes, and Ethnic Groups
-The Adaptation of the Americas to European Culture
Putting It All Together
Against the Grain: Juana Inés de la Cruz

Further Resources
Credits
Source Index
Subject Index