The Western Heritage, Combined, Eighth Edition

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Overview of European History
Review: I am a junior in an AP European History class. My class uses two textbooks, one of which is Kagan's Western Heritage. The Kagan textbook is by far my favorite of the two textbooks to read. It is very interesting and thoroughly covers all the topics of European history, many of which are skipped in my other textbook. I am even considering buying the book so I can read the chapters my class skipped and keep it on hand as a reference. The order of the chapters is not at all difficult to follow as long as the reader has a basic knowledge of European History or looks at the timelines at the beginning of each section. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Europe.

Rating:
Summary: A Poor Representation Of History
Review: I found The Western Heritage a very disappointing book on western history. The book only pays scant attention of the rises of civilizations up to the birth of Christianity, where it then on focuses mainly on its affect in Europe to 1527. Ignoring a rich and turbulent cultural history. I felt a distinct bias in the book; events such as the crusades are not written to be bloody spiritual cleansing they were and any sociologist would smack their forehead with the blatant use of labels in reference to "pagans". A history book should be written from a historical stand point and focus on ALL aspects of culture and society, paying each period in history its due. Early civilizations such as Mesopotamia where given only scant attention considering the innovation of their time. The book is written with such an ethnocentric eye it's appalling.

Rating:
Summary: Confession of a history flunkie
Review: I have always hated history with a burning passion, including especially my AP Euro class. However, this book has won me over. It has lots of pictures, maps, and primary sources, and is easy to read despite being absolutely crammed with information. I am definitely not selling this one back at the end of the term.

Rating:
Summary: Great for AP Euro!
Review: I took AP Euro as a junior last year and actually really enjoyed this text. It was a lot better than the other book that had been used the previous year which was comprised almost completely of political history. The pictures are nice when you have a big chapter to read and the writing is simple to comprehend. The pitfalls of the book lie in the chapter on the French Revolution and it is obvioius that toward the end the deadline was coming up because numerous spelling errors and other typos were found throughout the final chapters. The formation of the E. U. and its development were almost not at all covered, but much of the material is excellent. In preparation for the AP test my class did not do very much in terms of information, but spent most of its time doing DBQ's and essays. I read the entire book cover to cover and did not even have to study for the AP test and recieved a five, so I highly reccomend this book but look somewhere else for the French Revolution or if you really want things structured in a strictly chronological formation.

Rating:
Summary: Great for AP Euro!
Review: This is the finest single source textbook on the history of western civilization available today.

I first encountered Kagan, Ozment and Turner's "The Western Heritage" in its second edition. I have reread it cover to cover many times since. History is not boring, but historians tend to be. These men are not!

This volume overcomes the few shortcomings of the second edition. Chief amongst them the lack of a time-line, correlation to principle advances in contemporary non-western history, and contributions of Jewish thinkers of the modern era.

Its coverage is balanced. The authors are recognized, broadly published historians who treat history as a cultural dynamic. For example, prior to reading their book, I did not understand the rise of feudalism out of the ruins of the Roman Empire. Still sensitive topics such as the rise Catholicism and the reformation are covered with an academic honesty that has become rare in today's "politically correct" educational environment where George Washington Carver gets a chapter because he was a freed slave and George Washington gets a paragraph because he owned slaves.

Every chapter has excerpts the source documents of the principle thinkers and/or doers of the time covered. The end of the chapter offers a pedagogy for further study. This resource alone makes it the book worth the purchase price.

I will use this book as a basis for a home-schooling curriculum for my granddaughter. I recommend that anyone interested in this approach also avail themselves of the Prentice Hall WEB site, vig.prenhall.com.

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.