The Penguin History of the World

J. M. Roberts and O. A. Westad

  THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF THE WORLD

SIXTH EDITION

Contents

List of Maps

Preface to the Sixth Edition

BOOK ONE

BEFORE HISTORY

Introduction

1   The Foundations

2   Homo Sapiens

3   The Possibility of Civilization

BOOK TWO

CIVILIZATIONS

Introduction

1   Early Civilized Life

2   Ancient Mesopotamia

3   Ancient Egypt

4   Intruders and Invaders

5   The Beginnings of Civilization in South Asia

6   Ancient China

7   The Other Worlds of the Ancient Past

8   Transformations

BOOK THREE

THE CLASSICAL AGE

Introduction

1   Remaking the Old World

2   The Greeks

3   The Hellenistic World

4   Rome

5   Christianity and the Western Transition

6   Classical India

7   Classical China

BOOK FOUR

THE AGE OF DIVERGING TRADITIONS

Introduction

1   The Central Eurasian Crossroads

2   Islam and the Arab Empires

3   Byzantium and Its Sphere

4   The New Middle East and the Making of Europe

5   India

6   Imperial China

7   Japan

8   Worlds Apart

9   Europe: The Possibility of Change

10 New Limits, New Horizons

BOOK FIVE

THE MAKING OF THE EUROPEAN AGE

Introduction

1   Qing China and Mughal India

2   A New Kind of Society: Early Modern Europe

3   Authority and Its Challengers in Europe

4   The New World of Great Powers

5   Europe’s Assault on the World

6   World History’s New Shape

7   Ideas Old and New

BOOK SIX

THE GREAT ACCELERATION

Introduction

1   Long-term Change

2   Political Change in an Age of Revolution

3   Political Change: A New Europe

4   Political Change: The Anglo-Saxon World

5   The European World Hegemony

6   Imperialism and Imperial Rule

7   Asian Metamorphoses

BOOK SEVEN

THE END OF THE EUROPEAN AGE

Introduction

1   Strains in the System

2   The Era of the First World War

3   The Making of a New Asia

4   The Ottoman Heritage and the Western Islamic Lands

5   The Second World War

6   Decolonization and Cold War

BOOK EIGHT

OUR OWN TIME

Introduction

1   Revolutions in Science and Perceptions

2   The Cold War World

3   Crises and Détente

4   The Closing of an Era

5   Openings and Closures

6   Whole World History

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF THE WORLD

J. M. Roberts was born in Bath and educated at Oxford. He was a Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford, from 1953 to 1979. From 1979 to 1985 he was Vice-Chancellor of Southampton University and from 1985 to 1994 Warden of Merton College. From 1967 to 1976 Roberts was joint editor of the English Historical Review. He is the author of Europe 1880–1945, The Mythology of the Secret Societies, The Paris Commune from the Right, The Age of Revolution and Improvement and The French Revolution. In 1985 BBC2 transmitted the thirteen-part historical series The Triumph of the West, which Roberts wrote and presented, and later in the year he published his book of the same title. He was historical adviser to the successful BBC television series People’s Century. Roberts was also the author of The Penguin History of Europe and The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century. He died in May 2003.

O. A. Westad was born in Norway and educated at the University of Oslo and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 1990 to 1998 he was Director of Research at the Nobel Institute, and from 1998 Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He has published fifteen books on modern and contemporary international history, among them The Global Cold War (2005), which won the Bancroft Prize, and Decisive Encounters (2003), a standard history of the Chinese civil war. He also served as general co-editor of The Cambridge History of the Cold War (2010) and as an editor of Cold War History. His new book is Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750.

List of Maps

Sites of Some Celebrated Discoveries of Hominid Fossils

Early Sites of Farming in the Middle East and Europe

The Fertile Crescent

Ancient Egypt

The Indus Valley

China – Physical

Climatic Changes in the Sahara

Civilizations of the Middle East

The Greek World of the Aegean

The Persian Empire of the Achaemenids

The Peloponnesian War

Alexander’s March to the East

The Hellenistic World soon after 200 BC

The Mediterranean c. 600 BC

Southern Italy 509–272 BC

The Punic Wars – Major Events

Roman Expansion

Major Roads, Cities and Garrisons of the Empire in the Age of the Antonines

Judaism in the Ancient World

Paul’s Missions

The Sassanid Empire c. 400

The Making of the Eastern Roman Empire

Völkerwanderung

Justinian’s Empire 527–65

China under the Han Dynasty

Central Asia

Seventh-century Arabia

The Early Spread of Islam

Islamic Iberia c. 1050

Islam beyond the Arab World until 1800

The Byzantine Empire c. 1265 and c. 1354