Frameworks of World History

Features

• Clear and consistent diagrams show the development of the model over time
• "Issues in Doing World History" sidebars presents students with key philosophical or methodological issues that historians confront every day
• "Framing the Argument: Chapter Themes" is a short list of the central ideas covered in the chapter
• "Framing the Chapter" global maps highlight the key regions discussed in the chapter and show visual evidence that illustrates its themes
• In the course of each chapter, two or three key ideas are highlighted in the margin in "Principles and Patterns." These are basic tendencies of human societies (principles) or long-term trends of world history (patterns).
• "Images on the Screen" are photographs of artifacts from different regions that show how different cultures understood their worlds
• "Frame it Yourself" are brief thought problems, placed at the end of each chapter, that ask students to apply the conceptual tools of the model

About the Author(s)

Stephen Morillo holds the Jane and Frederic M. Hadley Chair of History at Wabash College. He is the author of numerous monographs and journal articles and the coauthor of War in World History: Society, Technology and War from Ancient Times to the Present (2008) and Cultural Encounters: Themes and Sources in World History (2005).

Reviews

"Frameworks provides a coherent and consistently argued frame for understanding world history on a large and connected scale, with clear conceptual attention paid to the relationship between the global and the local. The graphic representations of the relationship between networks, hierarchies, systems, and cultural frames are innovative and facilitate learning. The text provides students with a conceptual framework and scaffold whereby students will remember and understand the larger historical contexts of world history. At the same time, it provides students with the opportunity to further their historical thinking skills by challenging and substantiating the argument made in the text."--Tim Keirn, California State University, Long Beach

"No other text that I am aware of challenges students to think about the course of world history in terms of cultural frames, hierarchies and networks. The strength of the approach becomes clear as the book progresses. The importance of major shifts in social organization comes more clearly into focus using this method, because students are able to use a shared framework for comparison."--Eric Nelson, Missouri State University

"I am struck most by the innovative model and organization that drive Frameworks. Far too often, 'new' world history textbooks deliver mere tweaks to a distressingly standard macro-narrative and fail to devise a method to explain world history. Morillo offers a profound rethinking of an integrated interpretation of human societies. The book's greatest strength is in the development and application of hierarchies and networks as the foundational models for analysis."--Ras Michael Brown, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

"Frameworks is impressive. The author's dedication to involve a global approach in every single chapter of the book is humbling--I honestly did not think that this could be done! I also appreciate the focus on historical methodology, rather than just information. This book shows a different approach-military history, social history, religious history-in every chapter. I love that it is truly interdisciplinary and that each chapter is global in scope."--Nadejda Popov, University of West Georgia

"It was a privilege to read this new text. Frameworks is truly unique. Morillo is more than a professor or a scholar; he is a teacher-author. He not only uses a tight methodology and model for examining world civilizations, but the attendant metadiscourse (metacommentary) throughout the manuscript offers students a running lesson in historical method."--Evan Ward, Brigham Young University