Page 40 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

A Long March: Creating

the Berkshire Encyclopedia

of World History

o study world history once meant to study civi- ogy, and resulted in a synthesis of these seemingly unre-
Tlizations, regional histories, chronology, and “great lated disciplines with history.
men,” but that has changed in recent years. Now we
recognize the importance of interactions and of the Berkshire Encyclopedia
connections and exchanges of people, other organisms, of World History
ideas, and material goods over time and place. Today, The Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History is the first
world history draws on fields of inquiry such as archae- truly encyclopedic resource for world history. Devel-
ology, anthropology, and geography to map out the oped by an editorial team of more than thirty leading
broad patterns of the human experience, and calls on scholars and educators, led by William H. McNeill,
environmental history, the biological and physical sci- Jerry H. Bentley, David Christian, David Levinson,
ences, and economics to enrich our understanding of John (J. R.) McNeill, Heidi Roupp, and Judith Zinsser,
that experience. The new world history is also explic- the encyclopedia’s 538 articles were written by a team
itly comparative: It seeks to compare what happened at of 330 historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, soci-
different places at the same time and to help us under- ologists, geographers, and other experts from around
stand why life has not always been the same in all the world.The encyclopedia takes a dynamic world his-
places at all times. tory perspective, showing connections and interactions
Writing the new world history are scholars of through trade, warfare, migration, religion, and diplo-
women’s history, the history of indigenous people, Big macy over time and place. It begins with a 56-page
History (which takes history back as far as the Big book-within-a-book by David Christian, titled This
Bang), the history of science, and environmental history. Fleeting World: An Overview of Human History. This
They have taken many different paths to world history. overview explains the three eras in human history—the
In a recent interview, William (Bill) McNeill noted that Foraging Era, the Agrarian Era, and the Modern Era—
he was first drawn to world history in the 1930s by the and serves as a reader’s guide to the entire encyclope-
work of the anthropologist Clark Wissler, whose studies dia. Major articles by leading scholars, including
of social change among Plains Indians provided an Martin Marty and Immanuel Wallerstein, examine es-
intriguing model of culture change. Another of our edi- sential themes and patterns such as Art, Disease, Gov-
tors, David Christian, was drawn to world history from ernment, Religion, Science, and War and Peace.
Russian history because he felt unable to answer his stu- Branching out from these overviews are hundreds of
dents’ very basic and sensible question, “When did his- articles on processes, movements, places, events, and
tory begin?” His search for an answer took him into people. Students and teachers at the high school and
archaeology, paleoanthropology, astronomy, and biol- college levels as well as scholars and professionals will

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