The Human Web: A Bird's-eye View of World HistoryWhy did the first civilizations emerge when and where they did? How did Islam become a unifying force in the world of its birth? What enabled the West to project its goods and power around the world from the fifteenth century on? Why was agriculture invented seven times and the steam engine just once?World-historical questions such as these, the subjects of major works by Jared Diamond, David Landes, and others, are now of great moment as global frictions increase. In a spirited and original contribution to this quickening discussion, two renowned historians, father and son, explore the webs that have drawn humans together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition, since earliest times. Whether small or large, loose or dense, these webs have provided the medium for the movement of ideas, goods, power, and money within and across cultures, societies, and nations. From the thin, localized webs that characterized agricultural communities twelve thousand years ago, through the denser, more interactive metropolitan webs that surrounded ancient Sumer, Athens, and Timbuktu, to the electrified global web that today envelops virtually the entire world in a maelstrom of cooperation and competition, J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill show human webs to be a key component of world history and a revealing framework of analysis. Avoiding any determinism, environmental or cultural, the McNeills give us a synthesizing picture of the big patterns of world history in a rich, open-ended, concise account. |
Contents
THE HUMAN APPRENTICESHIP | 9 |
SHIFTING TO FOOD PRODUCTION 110003000 YEARS AGO | 25 |
WEBS AND CIVILIZATIONS IN THE OLD WORLD 3500 BCE200 CE | 41 |
The First Civilizations | 43 |
Rise of Bureaucratic Empire | 55 |
Portable Congregational Religions | 60 |
Indian Civilization | 62 |
Chinese Civilization | 65 |
The World the Web Made 15OO18OO | 178 |
Conclusion | 211 |
BREAKING OLD CHAINS TIGHTENING THE NEW WEB 17501914 | 213 |
The Progress of the Web | 214 |
Igniting the Population Explosion | 221 |
New Foundations for Politics | 223 |
The Industrial Revolution | 230 |
Impacts of the Industrial Revolution | 236 |
Greek and Roman Civilization | 68 |
Population Environment and Disease | 79 |
Conclusion | 81 |
THE GROWTH OF WEBS IN THE OLD WORLD AND AMERICA 2001OOO CE | 82 |
Expanding and Thickening the Old World Web | 94 |
New Roles for Religion | 103 |
Emergence of an American Web | 108 |
Common Patterns | 114 |
THICKENING WEBS 10001500 | 116 |
How China Became the First Market Society | 121 |
The Transformation of Islam 1OOO15OO | 127 |
Christendoms Thickening Web | 137 |
The Old World Webs Pacific Flank | 147 |
Southern and Northern Frontiers of the Old World Web | 150 |
The American Webs | 153 |
SPINNING THE WORLDWIDE WEB 14501800 | 155 |
The Worlds Webs as of 145O | 156 |
Fusing and Extending the Worlds Webs 145O18OO | 162 |
Abolition of Slavery and Serfdom | 252 |
Globalization in the Age of Imperialism | 258 |
Ecological Change | 264 |
LockIn | 266 |
STRAINS ON THE WEB THE WORLD SINCE 1890 | 268 |
Communications and Ideas | 269 |
The Marriage of Science and Technology | 277 |
Population and Urbanization | 279 |
Energy and Environment | 284 |
War and Depression 191441 | 288 |
War and the Long Doom Since 1941 | 296 |
Conclusion | 317 |
BIG PICTURES AND LONG PROSPECTS by JR McNeill | 319 |
by William H McNeill | 323 |
329 | |
339 | |
Other editions - View all
The Human Web: A Bird's-eye View of World History John Robert McNeill,William Hardy McNeill No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
Africa agriculture Amerindian animals armies Asian Atlantic autarky became began Britain British Buddhist Cambridge camels centers Central century changes China Chinese Christian cities civilization coal coast colonial communities Confucian created crops cultivation cultural diseases East East Africa economic Egypt elites Empire energy Eurasia Europe European exchange expanded farmers France frontier global Greek human humankind ideas imperial India Indian Ocean industrial Industrial Revolution Islam islands Japan Japanese Korea labor land mainly maize Mediterranean merchants Mesopotamia metropolitan webs Mexico migration military million Mongol Mughal Mughal Empire Muslim nomad North America northern numbers Old World Ottoman Ottoman Empire Pacific peasants percent political population growth Qing regions religions religious remained Revolution rice Roman rulers Russia ships skills slavery slaves social society South Southeast Asia Southwest Soviet spread steppe Sumer Sumerian sustained taxes tion took trade transport tropical United urban villages warfare wealth West Western worldwide
Popular passages
Page 3 - And yet, looked at in a certain way, their lonely courses formed no detached design at all, but were part of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in both hemispheres, from the White Sea to Cape Horn.
Page 3 - Hardly anything could be more isolated or more selfcontained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely hour before day, when grey shades, material and mental, are so very grey. And yet...