World History Rules

Our latest book display explores world history. A wide variety of subjects get cataloged in the world history area (909). Since the display is popular, I thought that it would make a nice blog entry. Often people miss these books because they look at the area for a specific country instead of this more general area. I have been having a good time exploring this area and I hope you will too. Listed below are the most popular books from the 909’s.

The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam
by Riley-Smith, Jonathan

In order to understand the preoccupations of Islamist jihadis and the character of Western discourse on the Middle East, Riley-Smith argues, we must understand how images of crusading were formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

I Wish I'd Been There (R), Book Two : European History
by Hollinshead, Byron (Editor, Author); Rabb, Theodore K. (Editor, Author)

What is the scene or incident in European history that you would like to have witnessed—and why? This is the question that the editors posed to twenty superb historians, who each wrote a personal essay in response. The result is this engrossing book, a worthy sequel to the acclaimed volume on American history,I Wish I’d Been There.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
by Huntington, Samuel P.

Huntington here extends the provocative thesis he laid out in a recent (and influential) Foreign Affairs essay: we should view the world not as bipolar, or as a collection of states, but as a set of seven or eight cultural "civilizations", one in the West, several outside it; fated to link and conflict in terms of that civilizational identity.

How the Barbarian Invasions Shaped the Modern World : The Vikings, Vandals, Huns, Mongols, Goths, and Tartars who Razed the Old World and Formed the New
by Craughwell, Thomas J.

This highly readable, entertaining, but authoritative book contains action-packed stories, little-known facts, and information from the latest research on the barbarians and their importance in world history.

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997
by Brendon, Piers

A magisterial work of narrative history, hailed in Britain as “the best one-volume account of the British Empire” and “an outstanding book”. Brendon tells this story with brio and brilliance; covering a vast canvas, he fills it with vivid firsthand accounts of life in the colonies and intimate portraits of the sometimes eccentric British officials who administered them. It is all here—from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments.

The Other
by Kapuscinski, Ryszard; Lloyd-Jones, Antonia (Translator)

Reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski reflects on the West's encounters with the non-Europeans throughout the ages. Kapuscinski traces how the West has understood the Other from classical times to colonialism, from the age of enlightenment to the postmodern global village. He observes how today we continue to treat the non-European as an alien and a threat, an object of study that has not yet become a partner in sharing responsibility for the fate of the world. In our globalised but increasingly polarised post-9/11 age, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times.

The Great Upheaval : America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800
by Winik, Jay

Winik offers a comparative history of the 1790s “the decade that made the modern world” that focuses on the experiences of the United States, France, and Russia. In interweaving the political histories of these three countries, he hopes to demonstrate not just the intertwined fates of nations and individuals but the world-spanning forces and conflicts of ideologies, cultures, and religions.

Mysteries of the Middle Ages : And the Beginning of the Modern World
by Cahill, Thomas

From the bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, a fascinating look at how medieval thinkers created the origins of modern intellectual movements. After the long period of decline known as the Dark Ages, medieval Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today, from the entry of women into professions that had long been closed to them to the early investigations into alchemy that would form the basis of experimental science.

The Secret History of the World : As Laid down by the Secret Societies
by Booth, Mark

They say that history is written by the victors. But what if history - or what we have come to know as history - has all along been written by the wrong people? What if everything we've been told is only part of the story? What if it's often the wrong part?" "In this groundbreaking culmination of a lifetime's research, Mark Booth embarks on an enthralling and mind-opening journey through our world's secret histories. Starting from a dangerous premise - that everything we've been taught about our world's past is corrupted, and that the stories put forward by the various cults and Mystery schools throughout history are true - Booth produces nothing short of an alternate account of the past three thousand years.

The Sixties Unplugged : A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade
by DeGroot, Gerard J.

This book revisits the Sixties we forgot or somehow failed to witness. In a kaleidoscopic global tour of the decade, Gerard DeGroot reminds us that the Ballad of the Green Beret out sold Give Peace a Chance; that the Students for a Democratic Society were outnumbered by Young Americans for Freedom, that revolution was always a pipe dream, and that the Sixties belong to Reagan and de Gaulle more than to Kennedy and Dubcek.

TB