Book Review - Western Civilization

Review of “Western Civilization” by Spielvogel, Jackson J

Western Civilization, 9th Edition by Jackson J. Spielvogel is an excellent and volumous narration of the western civilization in 30 chapters. The historical narration starts from the prehistoric days to till date. The first 10 chapters consist of the narration from the ancient first civilizations, civilization of the Greeks, Hellenistic world, Roman republic, Roman Empire, medieval world emergence till the rise of church power. The next 10 chapters work on to narrate the later middle ages, crisis, disintegration, later middle ages, modern science emergence, International wars of Europe, Political revolution, Napoleon, Industrial revolution and its impact on the European society. The last 10 chapters of the book focus on Reaction Revolution and Romanticism, Age of nationalism and Realism, Mass society in an Age of Progress, An age of modernity, anxiety and imperialism, The beginning of the twentieth century crisis war and revolution, search for stability in Europe between the wars, The deepening of the European crisis world War II, Cold war and a new western World, protest and stagnation of the western world, After the fall, the western world in the Global Age.

The presentation of the book is very decent, written lucidly and will let the reader read till the end of the book. The presentation of the geographical conditions with excellent maps, an illustration of the facts and contents in the side bars make the text very inviting and accessible to read. Apart from the regular historical facts, there is a narration of the issues like the courtroom readings of Joan of Arc, Narration of the medieval merchant of Paris scriptures on the subject of marriage etc. The subject is covered quite comprehensively and it is a balanced presentation of political, social, economic, religious and cultural aspects of history. The key aspect is that the presentation besides being comprehensive is presented in a cogent and concise manner.

Also there is a critical presentation of the content is seen in several topics of the book. For example, the content is presented from one or more source contents and the explanation of the information is presented with in-depth coverage of the facts and the viewpoints of the subject. The images presented in the book for depicting the social life are very catching and provide different aspects of the social life with good presentation. The presentation in most of the chapters do have very broad and pro-active treatment, there are references to Bagdad as a cosmopolitan center, the images of everyday life feature on spices and world trade is presented well. The write-up and presentation distinguishing independence and free will attitude of the west with the egoism and individuality of the East. As a whole, the books consist of more than 150 maps of the times of those days along with 250 primary source documents.