Brief: Without the overwhelming detail of many textbooks,
Ways focuses on major developments, changes like the Agricultural Revolution, the birth of civilizations, the emergence of universal or world religion, and the Industrial Revolution. Rather than memorize details, students are encouraged to understand the main processes at work in particular eras.
Global: Ways takes a thematic and comparative approach to world history. Organized into six chronological parts, each chapter highlights a significant theme and illustrates it by comparing specific cases and examples from across the globe.
Broad themes include empire in the classical era, long-distance commerce in the early modern period, and globalization in the twentieth century. Throughout, the narrative revisits what the author terms the 3 C’s of world history: comparison, connection, and change.
Student-friendly: Student testers praise the author’s writing style, level of detail, and overall clarity. Fully developed pedagogy includes a contemporary vignette that opens each chapter and links the past and present; marginal questions that draw attention to comparison, connection, and change; and end-of-chapter study aids that help students gauge their grasp of the chapter material. The text also features a vibrant illustration program and more than 100 maps to help students learn geography.
Single author: A thoughtful prologue and powerful part-opening essays help to emphasize the Big Picture changes that occurred over the course of world history. At the end of each chapter, Reflections sections raise questions about the nature of the historical enterprise and the human processes it explores.