The Western Heritage: Combined Brief Edition with CD-ROM (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent survey of the central themes of the West
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly edited
Review: This textbook is filled with misinformation, typos, and blatant grammatical errors. I hope professors stop requesting that students read this text. The only thing worse than the book is the compainion website. It has practice test questions that contradict the "real" test and quiz questions that they provide. If you take this course DL like I did, this really makes a big difference. I have spent the better half of the semester arguing for points from my professor (and winning) who apparently never bothered to read the tests or the text (I should get paid from him!!)
One example, on a practice test, when you type in the name Pompey, a correct answer, it tells you that you are wrong because it is Pomey (there is no such Roman General)
When you contact the publisher's website administrator, they tell you that you need to talk to your professor to get anything changed. That was two months ago, he nor they have done anything about it. I am not exagerating when I say that is one of at least 25 examples that I have noticed.

Also, there is a lot of inconsistency in the writing styles of chapters. There is an overemphasis of women. Now, I am a women and I agree that we have been left out of history for way too long. This book has a section per chapter just reminding you how bad we had it throughout history. Chapter after chapter in the ancient and middle ages sections at least, women's lots did not change a lot. I think they could have just updated us when major advancements were made.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: Very influential, but boring.