The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History |  | Authors: Robert McNeill, William H. McNeill
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
Buy New: $18.05
as of 9/9/2010 06:21 MDT details
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Seller: sbd-
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 16550
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1ST
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.4
ISBN: 0393925684
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780393925685
ASIN: 0393925684
Publication Date: December 17, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An original vision of world history that reveals the larger patterns of human cooperation and conflict from the earliest times. Why did the first civilizations emerge when and where they did? How did Islam become a unifying force in the world of its birth? What enabled the West to project its goods and power around the world from the fifteenth century on? Why was agriculture invented seven times and the Internet just once? In a spirited contribution to the quickening discussion of world-historical questions such as these, J. R. and William H. McNeill explore the webs that have drawn humans together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition, since the beginning. Whether small or large, loose or dense, these webs have provided the medium for the movement of ideas, goods, power, and money within and across cultures, societies, and nations. Avoiding any determinism, environmental or cultural, the McNeills give us a synthesizing picture of the big patterns of world history in a rich, open-ended, concise account. Maps, 25 b/w illustrations.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 dense and provocative July 26, 2010
hmf22 (New York, NY)
The Human Web, by a distinguished father-son team of historians, is a remarkable book. McNeill and McNeill endeavor to cover all of human history in 327 pages. Their analytical framework focues on the gradual emergence of regional "webs" of economic and cultural exchange, and consequently emphasizes demographic and economic themes over political, religious, and intellectual ones. Their treatment of politics and religion is sound but often cursory; what really excites the McNeills is how particular technologies moved around and how quickly particular populations grew. While I thought that the McNeills sometimes gave short shrift to the ways in which ideas can motivate people, I found their depiction of the emergence of a world-wide "human web" extremely compelling.
No one could accuse the McNeills of being timid in their approach to historical analysis. What delighted me most about this book were the bold international comparisons--"Travelers may notice that people in those parts of Europe where cooperative moldboard plowing once prevailed still obey rules, form queues, and in general trust one another more than do the inhabitants of lands where separate families cultivated their fields independently and often distrusted their neighbors because of boundary disputes or the like" (142)--and the stark statistics that contextualize key events--"World War II killed about 3 percent of the world's 1940 population" (298). I take each of these statements with a grain of salt-- we don't know exactly how many people died in World War II, though 60 million is a reasonable estimate, and it's unlikely that historical farming patterns fully account for differences in national character, which in any case is constantly in flux. But what powerful ideas! The McNeills illuminated broad historical themes in ways I had never thought of before and inspired me to get more information about some parts of the world I have never studied.
Two small caveats: On the whole, I found the McNeills' treatment of Europe and Asia more compelling than their treatment of sub-Saharan Africa and indigenous America. This may reflect the state of the secondary literature when the McNeills were doing their research; some passages already seem a little dated. Secondly, this is a well-written but extremely dense book. I got a lot out of it because I already knew a good deal about the topic. I think that students and general readers might find that they needed to read The Human Web quite slowly and do a good deal of rereading or note-taking in order to keep all of the information straight. But if you are up for a challenge, this is a highly rewarding read.
 The best short history I ever read August 29, 2009
Allan Lindh (Santa Cruz, CA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a William McNeil fan, but was stunned by how good this book was. Teaming with his Ecologically oriented historian son they have produced a short history of humankind so clear and transparent, and intelligent, that you end up sorry you didn't get to read it first, before you read all the histories overloaded with details. Having noticed that all of human society and civilization consists of dynamic webs of information and material flow, they write a history of the last 100 thousand years from that perspective -- political boundaries hardly figure, just people exchanging information and material in ever more complex webs. The current "World Wide Web" is then just the latest step in improved information flow. Buy one for yourself, your friends, your kids, high school seniors, etc. Human history is slightly clearer when you finish this book.
A refreshing and exceptional overview of world history August 25, 2009
Tammi Lauri (Helsinki, Finland)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you need to try to survive from our history by reading only one book, here's one of the better, perhaps even the best, alternative. I'm a student of history myself, and I can only say that, due to my experience, it's very difficult to beat J.R. and William McNeill. The task of creating a general view from the whole world history is very difficult, but the McNeills have managed extremely well and written this very readable and colorful analysis of our history. This is a rare success book with challenging thoughts not just for students and advanced historians, but also for any literate blue-collar lad, waitress or "hockey-mom".
When Human Web was translated into Finnish (in 2005), immediately four main history and social science departments took it as their entrance examinations book. And not just the schools of history in Turku and Tampere and the subject of social and economical history in Helsinki, but also the Finland's most respected school for world politics in Helsinki had it as their main entrance examination book - and most of them still have.
Human Web is a book written with an impressing academical knowledge on a very clear and readable way avoiding any frustrating jargon. All this makes it a very pleasant, refreshing and exceptional reading experience for anyone.
The Aftermath of Columbus June 10, 2009
Edward G. Simmons (Atlanta, GA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The McNeills, father and son historians, have given us a superb history of the course of human civilization that is richly detailed in its survey of world cultures while living up to its billing as a "bird's-eye view." The dominant theme in this history is the emergence of webs binding societies together through transportation, communication, economics, politics, and interaction with the environment. Prior to 1450 the emphasis is on how cultures developed in every part of the world and the emergence of the "Old World Web" of cultural interactions in Eurasia and northern parts of Africa. After Columbus, the thesis is that the cultural webs began to merge into a single World Wide Web which characterizes life especially since 1870. The role of Columbus was central, for his "voyage stands as the most crucial step in undoing that ignorance and isolation, in fusing the world's webs into a single, global one, the most important process in modern history." (p. 163)
Except for the period 1914-1945, globalization has reigned supreme, they say. They present this as fraught with danger as well as offering great promise. The global economy has increased the divide between the haves and have-nots, they point out. Contemporary life is also characterized by upheaval, they say. "With the creation of a single web, it is as if history speeded up. Innovations and inventions, booms and depressions, pests and plagues rippled through a unified system .... So, as human history grew more unified, it grew more unstable and chaotic than ever, a condition with which we still live." (p. 178)
Two paramount emphases for recent times are the scientific and economic booms that have been going on since 1945 and human impact on ecology. The factor with the greatest potential impact for the future of humanity is the fact that, "in the process of trying to feed ourselves, make money, and protect ourselves from our fellows, we recast the biosphere dramatically, inserting ourselves as the main force shaping biological evolution." (286) They point out that the planet has seen five previous "extinction spasms" and that the twentieth century appears to be the start of a sixth, this one caused entirely by humanity. (p. 286) They conclude soberly: "It may one day appear that this ecological tumult, particularly climate change and the reduction in biodiversity, was the most important development in the period after 1890, more so than ideological struggles or world wars." (p. 288)
Highly researched and well written, this history is recommended for its scope and insight. This work put the past and present in a perspective that makes sense in our pluralistic yet increasingly global world.
Great Book...if you like this sort of stuff. August 12, 2008
A.W.S. (Texas)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'm a high school world history teacher and I have my students read this as we move through our textbook. It works as a great supplement. It's very fast and easy reading and it helps readers understand how everything and everyone throughout history is tied together (hence the name "The Human Web"). It's the basic premise of history--cause and effect. If you are just starting to study history (or doing so because you have to) or just a casual fan, this is a great book to read. If you are a teacher, scholar, or serious history buff, this might be a little bland and simple for your taste.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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