Cultures of the West - A History, Volume 2: Since 1350

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List of contents

• Contents


• Maps


• Preface


• About the Author


• Note on Dates


• 12. Renaissances and Reformations


• 1350-1563


• Rebirth or Culmination?


• The Political and Economic Matrix


• The Renaissance Achievement


• Christian Humanism


• Erasmus: Humanist Scholar and Social Critic


• Martin Luther: The Gift of Salvation


• Luther's Rebellion against the Church


• The Reformation Goes International


• Calvin and "the Elect"


• Strife and Settlement in England


• Catholic Reform and the Council of Trent


• The Society of Jesus


• What About the Catholic and Orthodox East?


• 13. Worlds Old and New


• 1450-1700


• European Voyages of Discovery


• New Continents and Profits


• Conquest and Epidemics


• The Copernican Drama


• Galileo and the Truth of Numbers


• Inquisition and Inquiry


• The Revolution Broadens


• The Ethical Costs of Science


• The Islamic Retreat from Science


• Thinking About Truth


• Newton's Mathematical Principles


• 14. The Wars of All against All


• 1540-1648


• The Godly Society


• From the Peace of Augsburg to the Edict of Nantes: The French Wars of Religion


• Dutch Ascendancy and Spanish Eclipse


• The Thirty Years' War


• Enemies Within: The Hunt for Witches


• The Jews of the East and West


• The Waning of the Sultanate


• New Centers of Intellectual and Cultural Life


• Wars of Religion: The Eastern Front


• Economic Change in an Atlantic World


• 15. From Westphalia to Paris: Regimes Old and New


• 1648-1750


• The Peace of Westphalia: 1648


• The Argument for Tyranny


• The Social Contract


• Absolute Politics


• Police States


• Self-Indulgence with a Purpose: The Example of Versailles


• Paying for Absolutism


• Mercantilism and Poverty


• International Trade in a Mercantilist Age


• The Slave Trade and Domestic Subjugation


• Domesticating Dynamism: Regulating Culture


• The Control of Private Life


• England's Separate Path: The Rise of Constitutional Monarchy


• Ottoman and Persian Absolutism


• The Return of Uncertainty


• 16. The Enlightened


• 1690-1789


• The Enlightenment Enterprise


• Learning from Our Worst Mistakes


• A New World of Ideas


• Voltaire and the Limits of Optimism


• The Radical Thought of Rousseau


• Can Women Be Enlightened?


• The Jewish Enlightenment


• The Jews and Europe's Ambivalence


• The Enlightened East


• The Unenlightened


• Assessing the Enlightenment


• 17. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire


• 1789-1815


• A Revolution in Western History?


• Revolutionary Road


• The Enlightened Revolution


• The Revolution Turns Radical


• How to Judge a Revolution


• Napoleon


• The Rush to Empire


• The Continental System


• Downfall


• Revolutions in the Colonies


• 18. Industrialization and Its Discontents


• 1750-1850


• Britain's Head Start


• Innovation and Infrastructure


• Trying to Catch Up to Britain


• Trying to Catch Up to Europe: The Ottoman Empire


• Life in the Industrial Age


• Riots and Repression


• Women and Children Last


• Reaction: The Romantic Generation


• 19. The Birth of Modern Politics


• 1815-1848


• Conservatism in Power


• Royalism and Its Opponents


• The Moral Component of Conservatism


• The Challenge of Liberalism


• Rebellion and Reform


• Responses to Liberal Capitalism


• The Revolutions of 1848


• Karl Marx and Revolution


• The Collapse of the Concert of Europe


• Women in a Conservative Age


• 20. Nationalism and Identity


• 1800-1900


• Nationalism in Theory


• Nationalism in Practice: France, Italy, and Germany


• Frustrated Nationalism: Hungary and Ireland


• Jewish Identities


• Islamic Nationalisms


• Reforming Islam


• 21. The Modern Woman


• 1860-1914


• The Appetite for Reform


• Whose Rights Come First?


• Suffragists and Suffragettes


• Love and Sex


• Exploring Female Identity


• Education and Work


• The "Woman Question" for Muslims


• 22. The Challenge of Secularism


• 1800-1914


• Who Killed God?


• The Theory of Creation


• Darwin and Evolution by Natural Selection


• A Secular Universe


• Nietzsche and the Will to Power


• Art for Art's Sake


• The Illness of Western Society


• Freud and Psychoanalysis


• Modernism: The First Wave


• The Catholic Counterattack


• Modernism, Secularism, and the Jews


• The Islamic Exception


• 23. The Great Land Grab


• 1870-1914


• "The White Man's Burden"


• The Second Industrial Revolution


• Looking Overseas


• Missionary Europe


• Industrial Warfare and Command Economies


• Western Ways: Emulation and Resistance


• 24. The World at War (Part I)


• 1914-1918


• The Run-Up to War


• The Balance of Power


• A New Map of Hell


• The Way of the War


• The Home Fronts


• Officers and Gentlemen


• Russia's Revolutions


• Bolshevism and the Laws of History


• How Not to End a War


• Young Turks


• 25. Radical Realignments


• 1919-1939


• History for Beginners


• Parceling out Nations


• New Rights and New Economies


• The Great Depression


• The Search for Someone to Blame


• Modernism: The Second Wave


• The Rise of Fascism: Italy and Spain


• Nazism in Germany


• Oppression and Terror in Russia


• A New Deal?


• Appeasement and Pacifism


• 26. The World at War (Part II)


• 1937-1945


• The War in Europe


• War in the Pacific


• Atomic Fissures


• Women in, and against, Fascism


• Atrocities and Holocaust


• Making Amends


• The United Nations and Human Rights


• World War II and the Middle East


• Arab Nationalism and Growing Zionism


• 27. Theater of the Absurd: The Postwar World


• 1945-1968


• Setting to Work


• Alienation and the Absurd


• The Cold War


• Decolonization in a Cold War World


• Rise of the Welfare State


• Social Conservatism and Economic Liberalism


• The Postwar Boom


• Turning Point: 1967-1968


• The Female Factor


• Women, Islam, and the State


• 28. Something to Believe In


• 1960-1988


• A Generation of Rebellion


• Big Science and Expanding Secularism


• Another Catholic Reformation


• Postwar Protestantism


• Jewish Revival and Conflict


• International Judaism and the State of Israel


• Islamic Revolutions


• Ba'athism and Brotherhood


• 29. Global Warmings


• Since 1989


• 1989: A Year of Crises


• The United States of Europe?


• Economic Globalization


• A Viral Age


• War and Peace, from the Balkans to Ukraine


• Why Terrorism?


• Israel, Palestine, and the Arab Spring


• Women and the Global World


• Debt, Taxes, and Liberty


• Free Market? What Free Market?


• What Is the Greater West Now?


• Reference Maps


• Appendix: Table of Contents for Sources for Cultures of the West


• Glossary


• Credits


• Index

About the author

Clifford R. Backman is Associate Professor of History at Boston University, where he has been a member of the department since 1989. He is currently at work on a book that traces the development of toleration and interpersonal forgiveness in medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Summary

Cultures of the West: A History, Fourth Edition, focuses on the ways in which the major ideas and passions of Western culture developed, internally, and how they interacted with the broader world--for good and for ill. The development of such key ideas as religion, science, and philosophy form the central narrative of this book.

Cultures of the West stands apart from other textbooks in a variety of ways, the first being thematic unity. What did people think and believe, throughout our history, about human nature, the right way to live, God, the best forms of government, or the meaning of human life? Rather than maintaining a single interpretive stance, author Clifford R. Backman relies upon a consistent set of questions: What did people think and feel throughout the centuries about politics, science, religion, and sex? How did they come to their positions regarding the right way to live? Backman's many years of experience in the classroom have informed his approach--students respond to engaging questions more than they are inspired by facts.

Additional text

An original book with an authorial tone of voice that comes through. Clifford Backman is willing to be honest and direct, and to propose interpretations worth considering.

Product details

• Authors: Clifford Backman
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.10.2023
• EAN: 9780197668528
• ISBN: 978-0-19-766852-8
• No. of pages: 928
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; EDUCATION / General, History, HISTORY / Europe / Western, Humanities