For an accessible, comprehensive survey of the world's major civilizations, Adler and Pouwels's WORLD CIVILIZATIONS offers balanced, broad-based coverage based on major themes and bolstered by strong pedagogy that students will find effective. Built on the authors' fifty-plus years of combined teaching experience, this text gives students a fresh and balanced global overview of history from the ancient world to modern times, structured in a brief-chapter format that is flexible for you and manageable for students. By striking this balance, Adler and Pouwels's WORLD CIVILIZATIONS continues to present a unique approach to the world history course.

Key Feature

• Concise chapters of 10 to 15 pages in length cover key points in manageable "chunks." This organization is ideal for professors who wish to augment lectures with outside material.
• The document feature "Evidence of the Past" spotlights artifacts, material culture, and oral traditions as source materials for historical study. Examples of these boxes include the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, Ibn Battuta's visit to East Africa, Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, and more. Students are able to access further information on the Internet, extending the learning experience beyond the classroom.
• Chapter-opening epigrams, outlines, and chronologies provide an overall preview and context for studying each chapter. With these introductory sections, students have accurate expectations of what they are supposed to glean from the chapter.
• Themes for the text (including Society and Economy, Law and Government, Patterns of Belief, Science and Technology, and Arts and Culture) operate consistently among text references, boxes, figures, and column heads in end-of-Part cross-cultural comparison Worldviews.
• All boxes conclude with "Analyze and Interpret" questions that encourage students to interact with the material as historians would.
• Part-opening essays provide context, describing the chapters in each Part in terms of the text's overall periodization scheme, which employs a theme of equilibrium (balance among equally powerful civilizations) and disequilibrium (under which the West held sway over the rest of the world).

• New Chapter 38 on "European Imperialism and Africa During the Age of Industry" and new Chapter 39 on "China and Southeast Asia in the Age of Imperialism" expand non-Western content. Plus, additional material on Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in Part VI brings students into that conversation from a balanced and informed perspective. Other changes in the table of contents increase coverage of worldwide trade and exchange.
• Specific changes in the table of contents include: additional material on early Indian and Southeast Asian states added to Chapter 5 ("India's Beginnings"), material on early trade and exchange in the Mediterranean basin added to Chapter 7 ("The Greek Adventure"), and additional cultural material in Chapter 16 ("Empire of the Middle") on neo-Confucianism and the spread of Buddhism into China. In addition, the previously separate Chapters 25-26 are now combined into a new Chapter 25 entitled "Foundations of the European States."
• Pouwels's expertise offers a more robust treatment of African and Islamic history in this edition. This is effective on two fronts. First, students get a fair and balanced treatment of these important topics from an expert in the field. Second, the relevance of these topics to everyday life hooks student interest and increases their retention of the material.
• In response to reviewer requests, the authors have included parenthetical in-text pronunciation guides, which enable students (and instructors!) to discuss these concepts with confidence.
• Map captions are now accompanied by critical thinking questions that teach students how to read, think about, and work with maps as a historian might. The map captions also indicate exactly where students can locate interactive versions of the maps.
• Streamlined pedagogy and a new, user-friendly organization make instructor preparation time more efficient and increases student involvement in class. Additionally, the text is accompanied by resources to help you plan and prepare for class, including the PowerLecture CD-ROM, an all-in-one tool for preparing your course and creating great lectures.

1. The Earliest Human Societies.
2. Mesopotamia.
3. Egypt.
4. Warriors and Deities in the Near East.
5. India's Beginnings.
6. Ancient China to 500 B.C.E.
Worldview I: Ancient Civilizations, 3500-500 B.C.E.

7. The Greek Adventure.
8. Greek Humanism, 800-100 B.C.E.
9. Rome: City-State to Empire.
10. Imperial Decline and the Birth of Christian Europe.
Worldview II: Classical Mediterranean Civilizations, 500 B.C.E.-800 C.E.

11. The Americas Before Columbus.
12. Africa from Kush to the Fifteenth Century.
13. Islam.
14. Mature Islamic Society and Institutions.
15. Indian Civilization in Its Golden Age.
16. Empire of the Middle: China to the Mongol Conquest.
17. Japan and Southeast Asia.
18. The European Middle Ages.
19. The Mongol Intrusion.
20. Late Medieval Troubles.
21. The European Renaissance.
Worldview III: Equilibrium Among Polycentric Civilizations, 500 C.E.-1500 C.E.

22. A Larger World Opens.
23. The Protestant Reformation.
24. The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Empires.
25. Foundations of the European States.
26. China from the Ming Through the Early Qing Dynasty.
27. Japan in the Era of European Expansion.
28. From Conquest to Colonies in Hispanic America.
Worldview IV: Disequilibrium: The Western Encounter with the Non-Western World, 1500-1700 C.E.

29. The Scientific Revolution and Its Enlightened Aftermath.
30. Liberalism and the Challenge to Absolute Monarchy.
31. The French Revolution and the Empire of Napoleon.
32. England's Industrialization and Its Social Consequences.
33. Europe in Ideological Conflict.
34. Advanced Industrial Society.
35. Consolidation of National States.
36. The Islamic World, 1600-1917.
37. Africa in the Era of Informal Empire.
38. European Imperialism and Africa During the Age of Industry.
39. China and Southeast Asia in the Age of Imperialism.
40. Latin America from Independence to Dependent States.
41. Modern Science and Its Implications.
42. World War I and Its Disputed Settlement.
Worldview V: Revolutions, Ideology, and the New Imperialism, 1700-1920.

43. A Fragile Balance: Europe in the Twenties.
44. The Soviet Experiment to World War II.
45. Totalitarianism Refined: The Nazi State.
46. East Asia in a Century of Change.
47. World War II.
48. High and Low Cultures in the West.
49. Superpower Rivalry and the European Recovery.
50. Decolonization and the Third World.
51. The New Asia.
52. Africa's Decolonization and Years of Independence.
53. Latin America in the Twentieth Century.
54. The Reemergence of the Muslim World.
55. Collapse and Reemergence in Communist Europe.
56. A New Millennium.
Worldview VI: Equilibrium Reestablished: The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond, 1920-Present.