Aras Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 I am looking at these two different books for a World History course starting at the Renaissance and going up to modern day. If you have looked through these books, can you tell me if they are Europe focused or if they cover the rest of the world as well? I have Humanistic Traditions Volume III and it seems pretty euro-centric to me. Do the later volumes of Humanistic Tradition include a closer examination of the rest of the world? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 I very much like HT and used it for years, but yes, it is probably on the Eurocentric side. I have the 2nd edition, so I don't know what5 cha changes have been made. Book 1 is Ancients, 7 chapters, three on ancient civilizations in general and four more specifically on the classical legacy. Book 2 is Medieval, 7 chapters, one specifically on China and India, three that address Germanic, Islamic, and eastern cultures in general. Book 3 is Renaissance, Reformation, and Global Encounters, 5 chapters, with one chapter on Africa, the Americas, and cross-cultural encounters. Book 4, The Baroque and the European Enlightenment, 7 chapters, very Eurocentric with one chapter that covers leadership styles around the globe. Book 5, Romanticism, Realism, and the Modernist Turn, 5 chapters, the info/readings are mixed throughout the chapters in this one, includes art, events, and literature in context from Asia and Russia for sure. Book 6, Modernism, Globalism, and the Information Age, again mixed, has international style, the communist revolution in China, Islamic poetry, Latin American literature. That's what I see in a quick overview of the chapter headings. Ways of the World, 3rd edition, my dd used this for two classes in college. Their chapter descriptions are way longer, lol, and I am not as familiar with it. 23 chapters. Ancients about the same, more global coverage in medieval to renaissance, after that to modern about the same. With just a quick comparison of topics and page numbers, I'd say maybe a higher percentage of non-European coverage, but not necessarily more coverage overall (with the particular editions I have). fwiw, my dd said it didn't cover much that she hadn't already covered in high school with HT (which is also a college text). It seems like a similar setup, with art reproductions and literary excerpts throughout, but less coverage of architecture and music. In these editions, HT definitely has a lot more photos and art reproductions, but WotW includes questions and discussion points in addition to the text. I'd consider them both very good choices, combining an emphasis on Western civilization with decent coverage of other civilizations and cultures in context. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aras Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 Thank you so, so much for your post. I really appreciate it. So it looks I am deciding between apples and apples, not apples and oranges, ha! I have a Volume III of HT and I was planning on coordinating it with a Great Course but I was concerned about the lack of global history. Maybe we will just watch some documentaries to cover the other parts of the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 11 minutes ago, Aras said: Thank you so, so much for your post. I really appreciate it. So it looks I am deciding between apples and apples, not apples and oranges, ha! I have a Volume III of HT and I was planning on coordinating it with a Great Course but I was concerned about the lack of global history. Maybe we will just watch some documentaries to cover the other parts of the world. You're very welcome. HT is very easy to supplement. We would usually read and discuss daily, and then watch different lectures/videos a few times a week. I didn't bother too much with coordinating the two, other than trying not to be centuries off, lol. HT also makes it super easy to correlate literature, if you're interested in doing that. I would just flip through and write down the excerpts and suggested reading, then decide what I wanted to prioritize. Some of the excerpts are quite long, so I didn't want to read an excerpt for history and then decide later that I really wanted to read the entire work for literature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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