| |
|
Teacher
Review |
|
|
Editors' note: This feature is meant to provide practical, although not
unbiased, reviews of textbooks based on experience in the classroom. Readers
will note that the teachers who wrote these reviews differ widely in terms
of what they seek in a textbook. Moreover, these reviews are not meant to
advocate or discourage the adoption of any one text. Rather, they seek to
begin a dialogue about textbook use that we hope will continue long past
the posting of this issue. Indeed, we would like to encourage other teachers—both
at the secondary and at the university-level—to send us comparable
reviews of texts for inclusion in later issues of World History Connected. |
|
| |
|
|
|
Peter Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart Schwartz, Marc Jason Gilbert, World
Civilizations: The Global Experience, 3e, AP edition (New York: Longman,
2000).
|
|
| |
|
World Civilizations, 3e. AP Edition is an
excellent choice for teaching the AP world history course. The book can
help facilitate global understandings and connections in the classroom.
Of particular note is the emphasis on social history, which allows for greater
insight and analysis into an under-represented part of the course. In my
AP world history course, I have used World Civilizations, 3e. AP Edition
for the past five years. This review will focus on the more recent fourth
edition though I actually use the older third edition in my own classroom.
Remarkably, our AP World History course has had a 99.9% pass rate over the
past three years, and over 50% of our sophomores have received 5's on the
AP World History exam. As a result, I am confident that this book, in combination
with other materials, can prepare students for the test. I use the textbook
in my classroom selectively, rarely assigning a full chapter. (I still long
for an overview 200 page textbook instead of the 1000 page standard.) Students
also read from four other texts in the course, including the two Worlds
of History readers, Experiencing World History, and The World
That Trade Created, as well as large supplemental reading packets with
current journal articles.1 This means that students read approximately 50-75 pages
a week. The text works well enough for me as I feel I can assign pieces
of it. Assigning every chapter in a one-year course will reinforce the race
through time, mind-numbing approach to history, despite the focus in this
text on drawing out the larger connections. I tend to be selective in my
use of the text, using parts of chapters, the special features, and the
web links. My students utilize the companion web site for the parts they
don't read fully. I believe that no matter how good the textbook is, the
AP course description rather than the textbook should drive the pace of
the course. For most of my Advanced Placement world history students, the
reading level is appropriate. I teach in a suburban district where the majority
of students go on to four year colleges. They are able to understand the
content. Some students find the text dense but most comment that they prefer
it to the glossy, insert filled, high school text they use in ninth grade.
|
1 |
|
I chose this text initially for several reasons.
In my initial preparation for teaching the course, I felt that the language
of the course was reflected in the textbook. In addition, my own background
in social history is weak and I was looking for a text that could supplement
my own weaknesses. Philosophically, however, I do take issue with the authors'
idea of civilizations as the organizing construct for the book. Despite
the fact that the word is used in a plural sense and the authors argue that
civilizations are not necessarily better than other societies, students
still get the impression that some societies warrant more attention than
others because they have been labeled "civilizations." That said, though,
I like the fact that the book is based upon "comparative work and focus
on global processes." In fact, I would like to see more material in the
preface and throughout the book that defines these global processes, and
that shows how students can use these as tools for assessing change and
continuity over time and place. I think that further development of this
as a thread would permit greater student understanding of change and continuity
over time. |
2 |
I appreciate the book's explicit periodization,
which is determined by three specific rationales. This allows students to
debate the assumptions and rationales for the given periodization. While
I might hope for an alternate framework using labels other than classical
and western global hegemony and I would love to see a more explicit rationale
for the periodization used within each unit, the issues that can be raised
in the classroom provide for good debate. I prefer the Tignor, et al. organization
overall since it gets past more traditional periodization and, as a result,
students are left with a less Eurocentric ordering of history.2
|
3 |
|
I love the Visualizing the Past sections,
since they bring out suggestions for analysis of visual images and tend
to make connections between chapters and places. One of my favorites is
"National Leadership," on page 770. The In-Depth sections, however, are
my favorite because they take a topic and stretch it out across time or
place without the constraints of the chapter's parameters. Really interesting
comparisons, connections, and long term causes and consequences come up
within this section on a wide array of topics. Most importantly, it is in
these sections that much of the social historical analysis—on topics
like civilization, race, population, gender, the rise of the west, nomadic
peoples, and slavery —finds its place. Students are often able to
make contemporary connections to the writings in this section. A good example
of all of this is the In Depth reading entitled "Inequality as the Social
Norm." Global Connections are a new feature, which the edition I am currently
using does not include. This section allows for a broadening of context
that sometimes gets lost in the detail of the chapter. These sections seem
most effective when they are specific, mentioning specific movements of
people, ideas, or goods between specific places. |
4 |
|
The three major strengths of this text include
analysis, web access, and the attention to issues of social history including
class and social structure. The modeling of historical analysis, especially
as provided through In Depth looks and Visualizing sections, is valuable.
Students find the web links within the chapters as well as the web site
with on-line material useful. Lastly, the conscious attention to a broad
spectrum of world history beyond political and military events comes across
in this textbook. I think its weaknesses lie in its occasional tendency
to resort to European frameworks (i.e. the notion of civilization and its
periodization scheme), the sometimes disjointed nature of the text as it
alternates between chronological, regional and thematic coverage and, finally,
its length. |
5 |
|
Deborah Smith Johnston
Lexington High School
Lexington, Massachusetts
|
|
Notes
1
Kevin Reilly, Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, 2nd
edition, Vols. I and II (Bedford St. Martin's, 2003); Erik Langer
et al., Experiencing World History (New York University Press,
2000); Kenneth Pomeranz and Stephen Topik, eds. The World that Trade
Created: Culture, Society, and the World Economy 1400 to the Present
(M.E. Sharpe, 2000).
2
Robert Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of
the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present (Norton,
2002).
|
|
