Product Description Designed for introductory-level survey courses in World History. The primary goal of World Civilizations is to present a truly global history—from the development of agriculture and herding to the present. Using a unique periodization, this book divides the main periods of human history according to changes in the nature and extent of global contacts. This global world history text emphasizes the major stages in the interactions among different peoples and societies, while at the same time assessing the development of major societies. Encompassing social and cultural as well as political and economic history, the book examines key civilizations in world history. World Civilizations balances this discussion of independent developments in the world's major civilizations with comparative analysis of the results of global contact. About the Author Peter N. Stearns Peter N. Stearns is provost and professor of history at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Before moving to George Mason University, he taught at Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon, where he won the Robert Doherty Educational Leadership Award and the Elliott Dunlap Smith Teaching Award. He has taught world history for more than 15 years. He currently serves as chair of the Advanced Placement World History Committee and also founded and is the editor of the Journal of Social History. In addition to textbooks and readers, he has written studies of gender and consumerism in a world history context. Other books address modern social and cultural history and include studies on gender, old age, work, dieting, and emotion. His most recent book in this area is American Fear: Causes and Consequences of High Anxiety. Michael Adas Michael Adas is the Abraham Voorhees Professor of History and a board of governor’s chair at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Over the past couple of decades his teaching has focused on patterns and processes of global and comparative history. His courses on race and empire in the early modern and industrial eras and on world history in the 20th century have earned him a number of teaching prizes. In addition to texts on world history, Adas has written mainly on the comparative history of colonialism and its impact on the peoples and societies of Asia and Africa. His books include Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, which won the Dexter Prize, and the recently published Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission. He is currently writing a global history of the First World War. Stuart B. Schwartz Stuart B. Schwartz was born and educated in Springfield, Massachusetts, and then attended Middlebury College and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Latin American history. He taught for many years at the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty at Yale University in 1996. He has also taught in Brazil, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, and Portugal. He is a specialist on the history of colonial Latin America, especially Brazil, and is the author of numerous books, notably Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society (1985), which won the Bolton Prize for the best book in Latin American History. He is also the author of Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels (1992), Early Latin America(1983), and Victors and Vanquished (1999). He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). For his work on Brazil he was recently decorated by the Brazilian government. He continues to read widely in the history and anthropology of Latin America, Africa, and early modern Europe. Marc Jason Gilbert Marc Jason Gilbert is the holder of an NEHsupported Chair in World History at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a former University System of Georgia Distinguished Profes