Teaching upper-level or
introductory world history courses presents many challenges, and one of them is
the need to temper breadth and depth with an eye toward engaging students lacking
historical context. Such challenges make selecting texts a critical task, which
is especially true for survey courses that can benefit from concise narratives
that inform, not overwhelm or disengage students facing an avalanche of
historical information. These challenges are often compounded when newly minted
instructors, or veteran professors, must offer the first half of World
Civilizations and, often for the first time, need to teach ancient world
history. Layered over this is the fact that most world history graduate
programs focus on modern periods and themes, not the ancient past, and while
those challenges have been written about and continue to deserve attention, it
is very much appreciated when books are found that effectively engage complex
topics in antiquity. In this regard, those charged with teaching about the
ancient world will find a gem in the New Oxford World History Series offering, The World from 1000 BCE to 300 CE written by Stanley M. Burstein, Professor Emeritus, California State University,
Los Angeles. Professor Burstein has written one of the most concise works I've
read in quite a long time. In just 130 pages of main text, The World from 1000 BCE to 300 CE, effectively introduces readers
to major developments in the history of Afro-Eurasia as societies underwent extraordinary
changes in their politics and cultures.
The
World from 1000 BCE to 300 CE establishes its mission directly in the
opening pages when referring to the book's central theme of examining
interactions and connections across Afro-Eurasia: "By the early centuries CE,
increasing connections among these empires had made this period the world's
first global era. Trade routes both by land such as central Asian Silk Roads
and by sea through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean connected the great
Afro-Eurasian empires to each other and to lesser states in the southeastern
and southern parts of Asia, southern Arabia, northeast and east Africa, and the
Sahara and the Sahel" (xii). Of
course, by the first global era, Professor Burstein recognizes the entire globe
was not integrated during this time, but his work presents the years from 1000
BCE to 300 CE as a time when interactions across regions occurred with
increasing frequency, forming linkages and creating frameworks that integrated Afro-Eurasian
cultures, economies, and political systems.
In general, the World from 1000 BCE to 300 CE structures
each chapter with brief area introductions highlighting the major political and
cultural issues, the interactions with peoples from other areas, and the
conditions for social, cultural, economic, or political changes. In seven short
chapters, the reader travels across selected cultures in the ancient
Mediterranean and is introduced to Afro-Eurasian connections and cultural
borrowings. For instance, when discussing changes within Afro-Eurasia during
the Iron Age, Professor Burstein shows how climate change was connected to
population growth, while also referencing how new state systems appeared as
models for later antiquity and how technological developments shaped economic
and cultural changes.
The World from 1000 BCE to 300 CE gives
us a window on cultural developments and the ebb and flow of dominance by empires
in their turn: the Egyptians, Nubian, Assyrians, Babylonians, Indus, Greeks
from the Bronze Age through Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms, the Shang,
Western Zhou, Persian, Roman, Parthian, Shaka, Han
China/Xiongnu, Kushan, Nok, and Maurya. It
simultaneously introduces us to the development of Afro-Eurasian caravan and
maritime networks that traded in ideas, religions, technologies, and the entire
complex of social-cultural exchanges that is the undercarriage, the setting of the
life of empires during this period. Along the journey, we see how empires
became agents, whether they intended to or not, for migrations and cultural
interchange, which is an important thread in Burstein's work. Across Afro-Eurasia
we are introduced to religions grounded in the written word with commonalities
as well as differences in their rituals, beliefs, and iconic motifs: Judaism, Christianity,
Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism all have a place as cultural forces in
antiquity and platforms for the ages to follow up to our own.
This is a
great book and one I highly recommend; it is a testimony to the erudition and
clear writing style of its author and would be a solid addition to any library whether
for students or faculty just starting out or those who want a refresher on just
how integrated and foundational the period covered by this book was in the past
and continues to be as it reaches to the present. However, each sentence, each
paragraph, each page, each chapter of this little gem is filled with meaning
and important milestones, so it takes time to distill and is not something that
can be read quickly by the first-time reader. Professor Burstein's work would
be a good primer for an upper-level ancient history course or a useful part of
an introductory world history survey; in fact, I will try it out in my World
Civilizations course next year. However, for students without any historical
context, this lovely book could be overwhelming and requires careful engagement
with the instructor. It would be a useful pedagogical tool to have ancillary
materials that include outlines of each chapter illustrating salient themes
with more maps. Nonetheless, for an introductory course, even without such
materials, The World from 1000 BCE to 300
CE is worth using as part of your teaching as long as you help the reader
along the way. After all, no intellectual journey in world history should be
solitary and as this work clearly demonstrates, no culture, no society has ever
developed as a solitary unit, but has always been a by-product of interactions
and connections.
David M. Kalivas is Professor of History and Director of the
Commonwealth Honors Program at Middlesex Community College (kalivasd@middlesex.mass.edu), co-editor
for H-World, H-Net for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and currently
president of the New England Regional World History Association (NERWHA). |
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