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Review
| Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present, by Robert Tignor, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. 462 pages. $55.00, paperback.
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| The authors say they aimed to construct a textbook that would "integrate all the regions of the world into thematically unified chapters" (xxvi). Having examined a few world history textbooks, my eyebrow rose in a knowing expression of skepticism. To my surprise, however, Tignor et al. seem to have pursued these goals with considerable success. While the first chapter sets the Afro-Eurasian stage with the Mongol conquest in the 1300's and the last wraps up with a consideration of globalization since 1975, each of the ten main chapters blocks out a period of global history by presenting multiple regional examples of a repeated central theme. The resulting text emphasizes global patterns and exchanges while presenting students with opportunities in each chapter to draw clear comparisons and contrasts within a global contextualization. Focus questions—appearing at the beginning of each chapter, section, and at top of the page—reinforce this approach, often by requiring the student to consider the similarities and differences among the historical examples or by asking the student to follow the development of one of the themes considered throughout the book (impact of technology, effects of migrations of peoples, significance of political changes). At the same time, the text presents recurring examinations of trans-regional and cultural exchanges and syncretism as well as the efforts of local religious, cultural and ethnic groups to resist outside influences. |
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Chapter seven's examination of "Alternative Visions of the Nineteenth Century" provides a good example of the authors' integration of regional events and developments with a common global theme. The chapter introduction identifies three patterns of local movements motivated by resistance to the growing global influences of laissez-faire economics, technological advances and industrial methods that were altering existing cultural and traditional relationships. Wahhabism, dan Fodio and the Fulani, Shaka Zulu, and the Taiping Rebellion are presented as examples of the first pattern—responses in European-influenced, though not dominated, regions where religious and nationalist mass movements provided resistance. Similarly, the second pattern—responses within the "heartland of industrial capitalism, colonialism, and the new nation-states" (241)—is exemplified by radical nationalist movements in Europe, by Utopian Socialism and by Marxist communism. Finally, the prophetic movement of the Shawnee Prophet, the Caste War of the Yucatan, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857 demonstrate resistance efforts in areas of strong European influence and clear Western domination. The chapter's focus questions ask the reader to identify common elements of the alternative movements and to compare/contrast those in America and India. The text itself draws "uncanny parallels" between the syncretic teachings of Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, and Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Rebellion (260). Like the rest, this chapter reads more like an argument than a textbook, though the narrative and details of the examples ensure that it will be accessible for even sophomore world history AP students. |
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Of course, all textbooks have their limitations and this is no exception. On a practical level, while some excellent two-page maps have been included, for example to correlate the Mongol invasions with the spread of the Plague, the number of included visuals, photos, and textboxes has clearly been pared down. This concern might be rectified by purchase of the ancillary materials though the free online resource page is fairly extensive and provides a number of image and primary source links. Similarly, the book's periodization—chapters of roughly 150-year duration beginning in the fourteenth century—could make this text cumbersome for the AP curriculum. More substantially, the efforts made early in the textbook to balance political, economic, and social history wane so that later chapters focus almost exclusively on political and economic developments, especially in the twentieth century. In fact, less than a third of the focus questions relate to social concerns (mostly in early chapters) and not even one draws attention to the roles of women or social construction of gender. Some will also be disappointed to find that certain events have been glossed over or eliminated in order to provide a cleaner narrative. Africanists, for example, might wonder why the Xhosa cattle killings of the mid-nineteenth century do not merit inclusion as a clear parallel to the Shawnee Prophet and the Taiping Rebellion in chapter seven. Nevertheless, having been promised the world before, this textbook comes closer to delivering an integrated thematic treatment of global history with enough substance and detail to engage students and a comparative method that manages never to forget Africa or the Americas! |
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Bellarmine College Preparatory
San Jose, California |
Christopher Wolf |
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