Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Globalism
Review: 1688 takes a look at the entire world as it existed in that year. When I took history courses in college the only thing that seemed to matter was European history, so 1688 to me means England's Glorious Revolution and not a whole lot else. This book is a fascinating look at as many global events as the author could clearly identify as happening in 1688. The most eye-opening result, for me, is the recognition that our present inter-connected world was already taking shape 300 years ago. This is an important book because it allows us to recognize that not only are we not "alone" today, we haven't been for a long, long time.
Rating: 
Summary: White spots and the temptation to read more
Review: At first this book fascinates: a global view from one year in history. All those spotlight reports from all over the world make the reader realise what is happening at nearly the same moment in time: the establishment of a new dynasty's rule in China, the overthrow of the Stuarts in England, the departure of a Viceroy from Mexico ... Those are fascinating reports from 300 years ago, all with stories about individual people who left records: a nun in New Spain, a poet in Japan, a Jewish widow in Hamburg, a captured Turkish slave in the Balkans ... All those fates, all those stories make the reader want to learn more. Alas, this won't happen in this book. It is just a temptation to read other books, but not good history as such. For that it lacks a coherent structure; there is no theme beside the year 1688. Also there are too many white spots on the globe presented here. So not realy good history, but nevertheless a great book to be recomended!
Rating:
Summary: Worldwide history
Review: Conventional histories discuss events taking place over time. In his brilliant, thought-provoking 1688, Wills turns that notion on its side by concentrating on what was happening worldwide in one particular year. Along with relatively familiar European occurrences, 1688 saw the Chinese emperor mourning a Flemish Jesuit astronomer, the great African trading crossroads of Timbuktu in decline and a French fleet failing to cow Algiers. Wills ingenuously claims that initially he wanted to avoid 1688 for fear that Britain's Glorious Revolution, which saw the deposition of James II and the accession of William III, would dominate, and that, finally, he was forced towards it by other stories he wanted to tell (he could hardly, however, have written about a neighbouring year and ignored the revolution). The year is early in Peter the Great's career, just after Newton's great publications and towards the end of the life of the Chinese writer Wang Fuzhi. Bemoaning colonisation's later impact on aboriginal tribes, which he asserts were happy with nothing, Wills tends to romanticise the non-western. Without exonerating Arab or African participants, he blames Europeans for the awfulness of the slave trade, yet barely discusses slavery in the Ottoman empire. Descriptions of, say, tolerant Muslim urbanisation need more caveats than they get here, but 1688 challenges western-centric prejudices in horizon- expanding fashion, and its erudite combination of brevity and scope make it an excellent popular history.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit Lightweight
Review: I will admit that the author covers a lot of ground in this book, in which he conducts a general survey of events and notable personages as of 1688. If that date is recognizable to the general public, it would be for England's Glorious Revolution, in which James II was deposed in favor of William of Orange from Holland. Obviously, though, there was quite a lot more going on across the globe, and the author hopscotches about to touch on various affairs here and there and to highlight sundry people of interest, whether they were political figures, poets and writers, travelers, adventurers, scientists, or priests.
His destinations include Mexico, China, Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, and other nations and regions. The details he shares on what was going on at the time in the East are particularly interesting, and he has a fair amount of material on the Muslim world and on Africa. The stuff on Russia is also pretty good. I found the sections on the Spanish-speaking countries to be rather weak, though, and in my estimation his chapters on Western Europe were nothing all that special.
What I found disappointing was the lack of depth. Too often he introduces us to someone whose story is wrapped up within two pages. I really don't learn that much in finding out that So-and-so was born, grew up to become a Jesuit, wrote some poetry, and then died. I wanted more background, more context, more details. How did their culture shape them? What impact did they have on those around them? What is their particular significance and their legacy? Mainly, it's the artistic types who get this short shrift, and it sorta chaps me to have the life of, say, Aphra Behn brought up and then disposed of in a few paragraphs. What was the point, really?
Also, the author is overly fond of the Baroque period and too often comments on how this, that, and the other thing were totally baroque. A lot of the time this is a real stretch, and ultimately doesn't serve to enlighten the reader that much.
However, as a quick synopsis of events large and small in this one year, this book does pretty well, and earns kudos for highlighting a lot of non-European areas of the world. Accept it as a skimming of the surface, but avoid it if you want a great deal of discerning analysis.
Rating:
Summary: two thumbs up
Review: John E. Wills Jr. produced an amazing piece of work when he published 1688: A Global History in 2002. His retelling of the events that occurred 314 years before is astonishing in its detail and personalization. He does not give dull facts, but as he said he, "hoped to convey to [the] reader some of [the] astonishment at the voices I have heard." (5) I give the work "two thumbs up" because in my opinion it excels in the two major areas a history text should excel in. It is factual, detailed and accurate, but it is also highly enjoyable reading and draws the reader into itself. The approach used in the text is very interesting, and certainly has a place in a global history course. His non-Eurocentric viewpoint is refreshing and allows for a more accurate picture of the year 1688 to be developed. His ingenuity concerning the wide use of many different kinds of sources sharpens the image and gives us new perspective. The background information he gives to the different stories that appear is enough to allow us better understanding, but does not drown us in too many facts. His major focus on the basic shifts that we can see traces of in 1688 that will later create our own world allow for a degree of continuity throughout the work. Overall Wills creates a very good book, one that is both enjoyable and one that truly teaches us something in a way we may never have considered it before. As he calls it, the "baroque" quality of all the events going on in 1688, the intricacies and interconnectedness give us a perfect picture of life in that year. When it boils down to it, 1688: A Global History is a history text. In this way it surely is a good one. The facts contained within are all accurate, and all ready to be learned from. For a professor creating a curriculum for a global history course this would be a wonderful choice to either start the course off with or conclude with. It gives the reader or student a sense of a true global history. Wills tells us of events and people around the globe in one given year. This allows us to see the interconnectedness of the world, and how important it is to have a good understanding of global history. Clearly you cannot teach a global history course composed entirely with this type of manuscript, they simply do not exist. But this can be used to either introduce the importance of global understanding to a new student or tie a semester or a year's worth of teaching together at the end and remind the student of the importance of what was taught. Either way, 1688: A Global History truly is a global history and has its own place in global history curriculums. A student in a global history course may begrudge adding another 300 page book to their list of texts for the semester. It may seem like too much work for a trivial lesson they can be told rather than have to read for themselves as well. A student can be told the importance of global history without reading this book, but a true understanding may be missed. Students may grumble when they first see this additional text on the syllabus, but once they begin reading the complaints with dull to a murmur and then fade to nothing. This book is enjoyable and easy to read. It is not easy to read in that it is written for simpletons, it is easy to read because it grabs the reader's attention and flows like a good novel. This is rare in history texts. History is, after all, a story, and it should be told like one, with emphasis on character development and plot progression. 1688: A Global History would at times feel more like a good novel than a history text. This makes it go by quickly, and any student appreciates a book like that. Because the book is such a good read it appeals to a broader audience as well, not only those in the profession, though because of the title it may have to be strongly recommended by a friend in order to actually be taken into consideration. What 1688: A Global History does is draw the reader into the complexities of the story it tells, and does not let them go. This book is highly reccommended, and the above paragraphs are part of a much longer review I had to write for one of my classes. I really enjoyed reading this book and reccommend it to anyone. I'm very glad my professor assigned this text, and I don't say that often!
Rating:
Summary: two thumbs up
Review: John E. Wills Jr. produced an amazing piece of work when he published 1688: A Global History in 2002. His retelling of the events that occurred 314 years before is astonishing in its detail and personalization. He does not give dull facts, but as he said he, "hoped to convey to [the] reader some of [the] astonishment at the voices I have heard." (5) I give the work "two thumbs up" because in my opinion it excels in the two major areas a history text should excel in. It is factual, detailed and accurate, but it is also highly enjoyable reading and draws the reader into itself. The approach used in the text is very interesting, and certainly has a place in a global history course. His non-Eurocentric viewpoint is refreshing and allows for a more accurate picture of the year 1688 to be developed. His ingenuity concerning the wide use of many different kinds of sources sharpens the image and gives us new perspective. The background information he gives to the different stories that appear is enough to allow us better understanding, but does not drown us in too many facts. His major focus on the basic shifts that we can see traces of in 1688 that will later create our own world allow for a degree of continuity throughout the work. Overall Wills creates a very good book, one that is both enjoyable and one that truly teaches us something in a way we may never have considered it before. As he calls it, the "baroque" quality of all the events going on in 1688, the intricacies and interconnectedness give us a perfect picture of life in that year. When it boils down to it, 1688: A Global History is a history text. In this way it surely is a good one. The facts contained within are all accurate, and all ready to be learned from. For a professor creating a curriculum for a global history course this would be a wonderful choice to either start the course off with or conclude with. It gives the reader or student a sense of a true global history. Wills tells us of events and people around the globe in one given year. This allows us to see the interconnectedness of the world, and how important it is to have a good understanding of global history. Clearly you cannot teach a global history course composed entirely with this type of manuscript, they simply do not exist. But this can be used to either introduce the importance of global understanding to a new student or tie a semester or a year's worth of teaching together at the end and remind the student of the importance of what was taught. Either way, 1688: A Global History truly is a global history and has its own place in global history curriculums. A student in a global history course may begrudge adding another 300 page book to their list of texts for the semester. It may seem like too much work for a trivial lesson they can be told rather than have to read for themselves as well. A student can be told the importance of global history without reading this book, but a true understanding may be missed. Students may grumble when they first see this additional text on the syllabus, but once they begin reading the complaints with dull to a murmur and then fade to nothing. This book is enjoyable and easy to read. It is not easy to read in that it is written for simpletons, it is easy to read because it grabs the reader's attention and flows like a good novel. This is rare in history texts. History is, after all, a story, and it should be told like one, with emphasis on character development and plot progression. 1688: A Global History would at times feel more like a good novel than a history text. This makes it go by quickly, and any student appreciates a book like that. Because the book is such a good read it appeals to a broader audience as well, not only those in the profession, though because of the title it may have to be strongly recommended by a friend in order to actually be taken into consideration. What 1688: A Global History does is draw the reader into the complexities of the story it tells, and does not let them go. This book is highly reccommended, and the above paragraphs are part of a much longer review I had to write for one of my classes. I really enjoyed reading this book and reccommend it to anyone. I'm very glad my professor assigned this text, and I don't say that often!
Rating:
Summary: "the sketch and the anectdote" woven into world history
Review: John Wills takes a unique approach to writing global history by focusing on the world in a single year. More accurately, this is a history of the late 17th century in which the year 1688 serves as nexus, and justifies bringing together stories that he "stumbled across" while researching European-Chinese relations. The result is a somewhat personal and idiosyncratic, but very entertaining, book. He does not engage in extensive analysis, preferring the sketch and the anecdote to the Grand Narrative. The notions of fragmentation and serendipity, rather than system and analysis, guide the presentation: "The historian seeking to sketch a world tries not to be confined to any style, any set of questions but to follow hunches, to let one thing lead to another. Like Shitao letting the One Stroke appear in many forms, he hopes to avoid system and to put before his reader many pictures of a world, reflecting the unconfineable variety, splendor, and strangeness of the human condition" (P 112). The appeal of the book is that it is centered on the stories of real people, some of whom are well known and others obscure.
In my judgment the strongest parts of the book focus on points of cross-cultural contacts, what might be considered the "boundary" areas rather than the traditional "centers" of civilization. Here the sense of a dynamic, living world emerges most vividly. Rather than a world of static, closed societies, the world in 1688 is one in which boundaries are not rigid. People move about and encounter each other in pursuit of commerce, adventure, and plunder. A variety of cross-cultural contacts appear in these pages: individuals adapting to foreign and alien settings, diaspora merchant communities prospering and struggling, communities resulting from the forcible transplanting of people brought about by slavery, Creole societies in the New World, frontier towns like Potosi that brought together fortune seekers from all over.
One example of interconnectedness that affected people and communities in various parts of the world is the Atlantic slave trade. Portuguese activities left their cultural imprint on the Congo, where we see an African chief writing to a Capuchin Priest in Portuguese and calling himself "Dom Joao Manoel Grilho, who treads on the lion in his mother's belly" (P. 32). Across the Atlanta in Brazil, escaped slaves formed their own settlements called quilombos. They grew their own food, had they own smiths, and some grew as large as twenty thousand people. Eventually, leaders of coastal towns, suffering from raids by these quilombos, banded together with bandeirantes, Brazilian frontiersmen in the business of enslaving Indians, and in 1694 destroyed the largest of these communities, killing and enslaving those who remained. Meanwhile, back in London in 1688, a woman writer named Aphra Behn published Oroonoko: Or, The Royal Slave. This is the story of an escaped slave set in Surinam on the north coast of South America. It is brutal in its details of the cruelty of the whites and the suffering of the blacks. We see here that events in Africa and America are affecting the moral awareness of some people in Europe.
Wills argues that significant developments coalesced around 1688 heralding our own modern world. These developments were: "the rise of science; the growth of cities and commerce; government policies promoting economic growth; an immense variety of writing and publishing, some of it for broad urban audiences; some very individual and idiosyncratic acceptances and reinterpretations of the great religions; protests against slavery and the subordination of women." Furthermore, he argues that these developments, while led by Europe, were global, and that, "many readers will be surprised to find somewhat comparable changes taking place in many different parts of the world." The problem with seeking out origins of our own world is that it distorts the actual world of 1688. Furthermore, I think that these themes of incipient modernity, while perhaps suitable assessments of European developments, are something of a procrustean bed for the rest of the world.
Wills asserts that it was only a few Europeans who truly held a global perspective at that time. This is cleverly insinuated in the preface to his first chapter, "A World of Wooden Ships," through introducing us to the Venetian map and globe-maker Father Vincenzo Coronelli, a Venetian Friar, who is producing most accurate contemporary world atlas and globe. Creating the globe, he makes one triangular strip at a time, sending them to subscribers, European of course, throughout the world, who will finally assembly them into completed globes. This is an apt metaphor for the European global expansion. However, there is a whiff of teleology in anticipating European world dominance in later centuries.
Rating:
Summary: "the sketch and the anectdote" woven into world history
Review: John Wills takes a unique approach to writing global history by focusing on the world in a single year. More accurately, this is a history of the late 17th century in which the year 1688 serves as nexus, and justifies bringing together stories that he "stumbled across" while researching European-Chinese relations. The result is a somewhat personal and idiosyncratic, but very entertaining, book. He does not engage in extensive analysis, preferring the sketch and the anecdote to the Grand Narrative. The notions of fragmentation and serendipity, rather than system and analysis, guide the presentation: "The historian seeking to sketch a world tries not to be confined to any style, any set of questions but to follow hunches, to let one thing lead to another. Like Shitao letting the One Stroke appear in many forms, he hopes to avoid system and to put before his reader many pictures of a world, reflecting the unconfineable variety, splendor, and strangeness of the human condition" (P 112). The appeal of the book is that it is centered on the stories of real people, some of whom are well known and others obscure.
In my judgment the strongest parts of the book focus on points of cross-cultural contacts, what might be considered the "boundary" areas rather than the traditional "centers" of civilization. Here the sense of a dynamic, living world emerges most vividly. Rather than a world of static, closed societies, the world in 1688 is one in which boundaries are not rigid. People move about and encounter each other in pursuit of commerce, adventure, and plunder. A variety of cross-cultural contacts appear in these pages: individuals adapting to foreign and alien settings, diaspora merchant communities prospering and struggling, communities resulting from the forcible transplanting of people brought about by slavery, Creole societies in the New World, frontier towns like Potosi that brought together fortune seekers from all over.
One example of interconnectedness that affected people and communities in various parts of the world is the Atlantic slave trade. Portuguese activities left their cultural imprint on the Congo, where we see an African chief writing to a Capuchin Priest in Portuguese and calling himself "Dom Joao Manoel Grilho, who treads on the lion in his mother's belly" (P. 32). Across the Atlanta in Brazil, escaped slaves formed their own settlements called quilombos. They grew their own food, had they own smiths, and some grew as large as twenty thousand people. Eventually, leaders of coastal towns, suffering from raids by these quilombos, banded together with bandeirantes, Brazilian frontiersmen in the business of enslaving Indians, and in 1694 destroyed the largest of these communities, killing and enslaving those who remained. Meanwhile, back in London in 1688, a woman writer named Aphra Behn published Oroonoko: Or, The Royal Slave. This is the story of an escaped slave set in Surinam on the north coast of South America. It is brutal in its details of the cruelty of the whites and the suffering of the blacks. We see here that events in Africa and America are affecting the moral awareness of some people in Europe.
Wills argues that significant developments coalesced around 1688 heralding our own modern world. These developments were: "the rise of science; the growth of cities and commerce; government policies promoting economic growth; an immense variety of writing and publishing, some of it for broad urban audiences; some very individual and idiosyncratic acceptances and reinterpretations of the great religions; protests against slavery and the subordination of women." Furthermore, he argues that these developments, while led by Europe, were global, and that, "many readers will be surprised to find somewhat comparable changes taking place in many different parts of the world." The problem with seeking out origins of our own world is that it distorts the actual world of 1688. Furthermore, I think that these themes of incipient modernity, while perhaps suitable assessments of European developments, are something of a procrustean bed for the rest of the world.
Wills asserts that it was only a few Europeans who truly held a global perspective at that time. This is cleverly insinuated in the preface to his first chapter, "A World of Wooden Ships," through introducing us to the Venetian map and globe-maker Father Vincenzo Coronelli, a Venetian Friar, who is producing most accurate contemporary world atlas and globe. Creating the globe, he makes one triangular strip at a time, sending them to subscribers, European of course, throughout the world, who will finally assembly them into completed globes. This is an apt metaphor for the European global expansion. However, there is a whiff of teleology in anticipating European world dominance in later centuries.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: The book is not perfect. I do not think the chapters are linked together in an effective way and at times the author has to spend too much of his time on background information of the period and not enough time on the actual year in focus. In the end these are minor problems. The sections when taken individually are excellent and I did like the quality of the writing., I even found wondering if there was going to be a 1689 or 1707.
Rating:
Summary: Take A World Cruise!
Review: This absorbing world history of the year 1688 allows you, minus the book price, to traverse the globe for free. Professor E. Willis, jr. has done all the work for you. All you need is his book, an atlas and the internet to check out each exotic tale and locale. This is riveting history at its best!
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