Smith: World in the Making, Second Edition

Featuring a renowned author team and the best recent scholarship, World in the Making: A Global History, Second Edition, explores both the global and local dimensions of world history. Abundant full-color maps and images, along with other special pedagogical features that highlight the lives and voices of the world's peoples, make this synthesis accessible and memorable for students—all at an affordable low price.

The authors feel that the best way to understand the global endeavors of human beings in aggregate is to embrace change as the rule, to emphasize how all societies, all cultures, have been "making history" since the age of early hominids. The ancient concept of Homo faber or humans as fundamentally makers of things, be they tools or weapons, dwellings or watercraft, nuclear bombs or iPhones, is what inspires world historians.

They argue in their emphasis on lives and livelihoods for a world constructed, altered, renovated, remade by ordinary people even as we acknowledge the genius of individual innovators, disruptors who broke the mold or struck out in some new direction. World history is constantly exciting precisely because it is never predictable.

PART 2. CROSSROADS AND CULTURES

500–1450 CE

8. The Worlds of Christianity and Islam

400–1000

9. Religion and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Asia 400–1000

10. Societies and Networks in the Americas and the Pacific 300–1200

11. The Rise of Commerce in Afro-Eurasia

900–1300

12. Centers of Learning and the Transmission of Culture 900–1300

13. Crusaders, Mongols, and Eurasian Integration 1050–1350

14. Collapse and Revival in Afro-Eurasia

1300–1450

PART 3. THE EARLY MODERN WORLD
1450–1750

15. Empires and Alternatives in the Americas 1430–1530

PART 1. THE ANCIENT WORLD, FROM HUMAN ORIGINS TO 500 CE

1. Peopling the World, to 4000 BCE

2. Temples and Palaces: Birth of the City
5000–1200 BCE

3. Settlers and Migrants: The Creation of States
in Asia 5000–500 BCE

4. Empire and Resistance in the Mediterranean 1550–330 BCE

5. Thinkers and World Empires of Eurasia
500 BCE–500 CE

6. The Unification of Western Eurasia
500 BCE–500 CE

7. Reading the Unwritten Record: Peoples of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands
3000 BCE.–500 CE

PART 2. CROSSROADS AND CULTURES,
500–1450

14. Collapse and Revival in Afro-Eurasia
1300–1450

PART 3. THE EARLY MODERN WORLD,
1450–1750

15. Empires and Alternatives in the Americas 1430–1530

16. The Rise of an Atlantic World 1450–1600

17. Western Africa in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1450–1800

18. Trade and Empire in the Indian Ocean and South Asia 1450–1750

19. Consolidation and Conflict in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean 1450–1750

20. Expansion and Isolation in Asia 1450–1750

21. Transforming New Worlds: The American Colonies Mature 1600–1750

• Focus Questions

• Overview Questions
• Making Connections Questions

• Video and Web Links

• Sourcebook Examining the Evidence Questions
• Sourcebook Comparing the Evidence Questions

• Sourcebook Making Connections Questions
• Mapping the World Workbook Exercises
• Access to Oxford First Source: World History, a database containing hundreds of primary source documents that cover a broad variety of political, economic, social, and cultural topics and voices from around the world

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About the Book

Balances coverage of global and local histories to show the
interactions of the world's peoples over time and space

Features

New! Doing History features, located in the "Review" section of each chapter, show students the reasoning processes historians use to construct the historical past. These features are tied to the content in each chapter and are organized around seven key concepts.

The Doing History feature is also available in a digital version that includes a video and exercises

Lives and Livelihoods boxes reinforce the book's superior social and cultural coverage and unique global/local approach

Counterpoint sections reveal that alternative histories have always existed alongside "master narratives"

Reading the Past and Seeing the Past features provide direct exposure to important voices and ideas of the past through written and visual primary sources

Opening vignettes draw students into the atmosphere of the period and introduce the chapter's main themes

Backstory sections remind students of where they last
encountered the peoples discussed in the chapter

Overview Questions frame the main issues to consider while reading, while Focus Questions guide students’ comprehension and promote close reading and dynamic class discussion

New to this Edition