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A review by calamario
The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by John Robert McNeill, William H. McNeill
3.0
McNeill & McNeill attempt a daunting task of summarizing the history of humankind from the shift from hunter/gatherer cultures to agrarian civilizations; all the way up through the modern era and the fall of the Soviet Union. I suppose how well they succeeded depends on the target audience and your role as a reader.
I, as a history major, found it somewhat useful for a basic overview of world history and some of the trends that made their way around the globe. However, I also found it entirely too loosely structured and too cursory at some points (like African history, which is mostly only referred to in relation to early Egyptian civilization or the African slave trade in the early modern period and other expressions of European colonialism). The authors have attempted a chronological approach, which logically makes sense, but the problem with this is that they jump around all the time from topic to topic, culture to culture, only to return to the first topic, as they're trying to include everything all over the world at the same time. This makes for sometimes jumbled and unstructured reading, which is not helpful for a history major trying to get a clear, concise overview of world history. What the chronological structure did help with, though was making clearer some of the global trends throughout history, which I found I had an easier grasp of after reading the book. However, the McNeills' economist backgrounds are so very clearly at display throughout the entire book - there is very little focus on social and cultural interaction and exchange between cultures, and extreme focus on the effects of trade and economics. The latter are of course important drives for much of world history, but the exclusion of the former is a problem in my eyes.
I suppose in the end that I must say, that it was an alright read. It's not as completely dry as a number of other textbooks, and it was useful for gaining an insight into different global trends.
I, as a history major, found it somewhat useful for a basic overview of world history and some of the trends that made their way around the globe. However, I also found it entirely too loosely structured and too cursory at some points (like African history, which is mostly only referred to in relation to early Egyptian civilization or the African slave trade in the early modern period and other expressions of European colonialism). The authors have attempted a chronological approach, which logically makes sense, but the problem with this is that they jump around all the time from topic to topic, culture to culture, only to return to the first topic, as they're trying to include everything all over the world at the same time. This makes for sometimes jumbled and unstructured reading, which is not helpful for a history major trying to get a clear, concise overview of world history. What the chronological structure did help with, though was making clearer some of the global trends throughout history, which I found I had an easier grasp of after reading the book. However, the McNeills' economist backgrounds are so very clearly at display throughout the entire book - there is very little focus on social and cultural interaction and exchange between cultures, and extreme focus on the effects of trade and economics. The latter are of course important drives for much of world history, but the exclusion of the former is a problem in my eyes.
I suppose in the end that I must say, that it was an alright read. It's not as completely dry as a number of other textbooks, and it was useful for gaining an insight into different global trends.