From the Author to the Reader
Each age writes its own history. Not because the earlier history is wrong, but because each age faces new problems, asks new questions, and seeks new answers. This precept is self-evident today when the tempo of change is increasing exponentially, creating a correspondingly urgent need for new history posing new questions and offering new answers.
Our own generation, for example, was brought up on West-oriented history, and naturally so, in a West-dominated world. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were an era of Western hegemony in politics, in economics, and in culture. But the two World Wars and the ensuing colonial revolutions quickly ended that hegemony, as evidenced by the disappearance of the great European empires from the maps of the world. The names and the colors on the maps changed radically, reflecting the new world that had emerged by the mid-twentieth century.
Slowly and reluctantly we recognized that our traditional West-oriented history was irrelevant and misleading in this world. A new global perspective was needed to make sense of the altered circumstances. The transition from the old to the new was achieved, albeit with much soul searching and acrimony. By the 1960s the reality of the shift was evident in the emergence of the World History Association, in the appearance of the Journal of World History, and in the publication of the first edition of this text.
This brings us back to our original question: Why publish a new edition for the twentieth-first century, only a few decades after the first edition? The answer is the same as the answer given to justify the first edition: a new world requires a correspondingly new historical approach. The postcolonial world of the 1960s necessitated a new global history. Today the equally new world of the 1990s, and of the twentieth-first century, requires an equally new historical approach. The new world of the 1960s was in large part the product of the colonial revolutions. The new world of the 1990s , as Pope Pius VI noted, is the product of the “magic influence of science and technology”. The pervasiveness of this influence is evident in the “gigantic problems” it has created in all aspects of our lives. For example, students of the late twentieth century doubtless remember their daily prostration under their wooden desks, probably wondering what protection those flimsy structures could offer against nuclear bombs.
The generation of students had to face up to not only new dangers to human life, but also to unprecedented peril to the mother Earth which had given birth to that life. Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau has warmed: Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the twentieth century than in all previous human history. Likewise the environmental organization Worldwatch Institute concluded in 1989: By the end of the next decade the die will pretty well be cast. As the world enters the twentieth-first century, the community of nations either will have rallied and turned back the threatening trends, or environmental deterioration and social disintegration will be feeding on each other.
这本书很值得读!作者从宏观上整体把握历史,改变了我们过去对历史的分裂式认识。英文词汇比较简单,学历史还能锻炼英语能力。
评分英国当代历史学家杰弗里·巴勒克拉夫(Geoffrey Barraclough)对美国当代历史学家斯塔夫里阿诺斯所著《全球通史》的评价是:“近年来,在用全球观点或包含全球内容重新进行世界史写作的尝试中,最有推动作用的那些著作恰恰是由历史学家个人单独完成的,其中以斯塔夫里阿诺斯的《...
评分英国当代历史学家杰弗里·巴勒克拉夫(Geoffrey Barraclough)对美国当代历史学家斯塔夫里阿诺斯所著《全球通史》的评价是:“近年来,在用全球观点或包含全球内容重新进行世界史写作的尝试中,最有推动作用的那些著作恰恰是由历史学家个人单独完成的,其中以斯塔夫里阿诺斯的《...
评分1欧亚大陆上的文明也是多种多样的,它们的独特性取决于各自的所在地与中东最早的文明中心地相隔之远近。中国与中东之间相隔一片辽阔的、荒漠的地区,并有大山作屏障,因此,从古代最早时候起直至今天,中国文明一直与欧亚大陆的其他文明彼此相异。 —— 全球通史 2中国人的...
评分斯塔夫里阿诺斯的《全球通史》本是极好的,我至今忘不了高中时候从体育老师手中接过这本书读完后的兴奋感,以至于日后面试鄙校历史系新生学妹时,见其不无炫耀的介绍自己高中时候就读过这本书的得意神态,有种似曾相似感。在此之前只有黄仁宇,在此之后仅有皮雷纳、斯宾格勒在...
发现很全球的眼光
评分81. 6星书。不可思议的文笔,分明可以感受到作者价值观的主旋律。在写美俄关系时小心翼翼尽量做到客观,收敛情绪。写到国民党共产党的时候,对communism的不喜欢,一不小心泄露无遗。功利来说~虽然没有帮上我的GMAT的语法~~但很显然阅读和逻辑加工不少。。。第一本英文名著,竟然是历史 =,=||||
评分TOO
评分买下来了
评分英文学术著作的典范。
本站所有内容均为互联网搜索引擎提供的公开搜索信息,本站不存储任何数据与内容,任何内容与数据均与本站无关,如有需要请联系相关搜索引擎包括但不限于百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美书屋 版权所有