The Western Heritage: Volume a

Express order on 12/30 was shipped USPS priority on 12/13 and arrived on 1/3. Excellent turnaround time!

This was by far the most interesting history book that I have ever read. It is a brilliant amalgamation of facts, interesting analysis, maps, and historical documents that constantly touches on recurring themes throughout European History. I read it for the AP Euro class I took last year and, truthfully, it is the only thing you need to succeed on the essays of the AP test. However, all of the chapters are at least 30 pages long, with much material to comprehend and note-taking is necessary to remember much relevant information. If you have the time to put in to it, though, you will not regret slaving over this textbook.

I am a junior in an AP European History class. My class uses two textbooks, one of which is Kagan's Western Heritage. The Kagan textbook is by far my favorite of the two textbooks to read. It is very interesting and thoroughly covers all the topics of European history, many of which are skipped in my other textbook. I am even considering buying the book so I can read the chapters my class skipped and keep it on hand as a reference. The order of the chapters is not at all difficult to follow as long as the reader has a basic knowledge of European History or looks at the timelines at the beginning of each section. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Europe.

This is the finest single source textbook on the history of western civilization available today.I first encountered Kagan, Ozment and Turner's "The Western Heritage" in its second edition. I have reread it cover to cover many times since. History is not boring, but historians tend to be. These men are not!This volume overcomes the few shortcomings of the second edition. Chief amongst them the lack of a time-line, correlation to principle advances in contemporary non-western history, and contributions of Jewish thinkers of the modern era.Its coverage is balanced. The authors are recognized, broadly published historians who treat history as a cultural dynamic. For example, prior to reading their book, I did not understand the rise of feudalism out of the ruins of the Roman Empire. Still sensitive topics such as the rise Catholicism and the reformation are covered with an academic honesty that has become rare in today's "politically correct" educational environment where George Washington Carver gets a chapter because he was a freed slave and George Washington gets a paragraph because he owned slaves.Every chapter has excerpts the source documents of the principle thinkers and/or doers of the time covered. The end of the chapter offers a pedagogy for further study. This resource alone makes it the book worth the purchase price.I will use this book as a basis for a home-schooling curriculum for my granddaughter. I recommend that anyone interested in this approach also avail themselves of the Prentice Hall WEB site, vig.prenhall.com.

This text discusses the basic developments in Western civilization with a richness and variety that does justice to certain themes considered critical in our heritage. The development of political freedom, concern for the rule of law, the interaction between religion, society and the state, the evolution of science and technology, are among the fundamental themes in Western civilization. The Foundation of Western Civilization in the Ancient World is well covered. How civilization evolved from simple societies is treated in an excellent fashion from the experience and culture of the Greeks, while Greek civilization is shown to be richly nouriched by older civilizations such as the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations.