Introduction to the History of the World

I.

McNeill's A History of the World is widely recognized as the groundbreaking work of global general history, telling for the first time the complete story of global civilizational interactions from prehistory to the 21st century, and is published for the first time in Chinese. Authoritatively recommended by Arnold Toynbee, Stavrianos, Jerry Bentley, He Bingdi, Hsu, Qian Chengdan, Liu Xincheng, and many others.

In 1963, McNeill published The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (forthcoming from CITIC Press), which is generally regarded in historiography as a sign of the birth of global history. 1964, McNeill opened a course in world history at the University of Chicago, for which he wrote a book on the history of the world. In 1964, McNeill began a course in world history at the University of Chicago, for which he simplified and streamlined The Rise of the West for "students and general readers" and published The History of the World as a textbook for the course in 1967.

McNeill's A History of the World, revised and reprinted four times, has been a bestseller in the English-speaking world, and is required reading in world history courses at U.S. colleges and universities, as well as being the preferred introductory textbook for general readers, and has even become the designated textbook for the U.S. Air Force Academy.

McNeill's contribution and uniqueness lies in his belief that world history is only as meaningful as the interactions between civilizations, and he continually writes about the shocks and counter-shocks, conquests and counter-conquests of civilizations. McNeill's History of the World writes about the interaction of global civilizations in terms of civilizations, turning the previously segregated and isolated world history into a dynamic and interactive one, and drawing a map of the interactive network of human civilizations. This is considered the real beginning of the study of world history.

The Chinese edition of McNeill's A History of the World is the first to be published in China, nearly 50 years after its release. The Chinese edition is based on the fourth revised edition of McNeill's book, which was exclusively licensed by McNeill worldwide.

The book includes 109 fascinating charts and graphs, a historical timeline marking the course of human civilization, and a special bibliography of books for further reading; it also includes a brand new discussion of major events in world history and civilization that occurred after 1976, which makes this masterpiece even more complete in terms of content and system.

McNeil's History of the World is all-encompassing and is written in a concise and fluent manner that is unmatched by the average textbook. Whether you are an office worker, a student teacher, a business person, or a government official, World History is a classic and reliable introduction to world history.

II.

McNeill's theory of evolution is similar to Darwin's theory of evolution. Except that Darwin dealt with "organisms" while McNeill dealt with "civilizations". The growth and demise of civilizations is also consistent with the concept of "natural selection". All competitive civilizations are closely related to the environment in which they live and their understanding of the environment. McNeill constructs the history of the world as the history of the evolution of civilizations. However, he does not see modern civilization as superior to ancient civilization, nor does he see modern civilization as the fall of ancient civilization. He merely describes the change objectively, and above all reveals the mechanisms of the change.

McNeil's civilization is divided into at least three levels, the first is military, such as the dependence of weapons and armor on minerals, the dependence of warhorses on pastureland, and the dependence of armies on sustenance; the second is culture, which includes the way of human survival or wealth creation, and the social laws that ensure the reasonable distribution of wealth, and the advanced cultures will be imported from the civilization into other civilizations surreptitiously, and such conquests are quite insidious; third is religion, which governs the great affairs of mankind and dominates the sharpest spiritual conflicts, and which is itself the cohesive force of civilization, without which civilization is weak. All civilizations that are victorious in competition must be superior to others in these three dimensions and have a strong vitality of their own.

Because he builds a history of the world out of the exchanges and rivalries of civilizations, McNeill's eye is always on conquering armies, nomads, merchants, sailors, pirates, monks, engineers, missionaries, the founders or initiators of a particular idea, and plagues. And disdain for the change of dynasties in peacetime. Thus his history of the world is more like a huge river, flowing extremely fast in the center, but more sluggishly nearer the banks. McNeill's achievement was to chart the river's central channel and direction of flow, and this was truly his seminal work in world history; other historians seem to have been left to search for new discoveries by following the course he set.

The book's strategy of providing a panorama while traversing the center of every major event is the sturdy, beautiful skeleton of the book. The details of the formation and exchange of civilizations are the flesh and blood of the book. The whole book is again like a collection of timeless intellectual sketches. The reason for this wonderful effect is that its content not only lays out historical facts, but also distills a clear theme in each chapter, closely integrates the evolution of matter and the renewal of civilization, and provides a series of eloquent expositions that fully display its thoughtfulness.

Chapter 3, for example, deals with the impact of iron-making technology on the development of civilization: "The first major consequence of this technological advance was a new wave of barbarian invasions, which surrounded and overthrew, one by one, the great empires of the ancient Middle East from 1200 to 1000 BC. The military victories of the Iron Age barbarians depended on the concentricity of a primitive egalitarian ****-symbiosis in which everyone was a mighty warrior, for there was no such thing as the divide between master and subject that had long prevailed in civilized regions of the world. The sparsely numbered chariot aristocracy, surrounded by angry subjects and weakened by traditional infighting, is no foe to such group attacks."

In this discourse, McNeill does not attribute the barbarians' victory simply to the advent of iron-making technology, but rather to the way iron was used in different civilizations: it was more powerful to spread weapons out than to concentrate them. Readers who enjoy the military are well aware that any new type of soldier that emerges in history will encounter both dispersed and concentrated tactical options, which in turn are closely linked to the characteristics of the civilization. McNeill always carefully examines the distinctive features of each civilization and attributes its changes and demise to its inherent flaws. Then there is Chapter 5, which deals with the relationship between the Greek military square and the Spartan slave revolt:

"A major change in military tactics laid a solid foundation for peasants involved in political life. This was the invention of the square - a mass of dense infantry formations ...... A charge of thousands of armored, uniformly moving, and well-trained soldiers was able to sweep across the battlefield against cavalry or any other force on the enemy's side. When this advantage becomes apparent ...... anything detrimental to the strengthening of the strength of the phalanx will jeopardize the city-state. If the danger is imminent, as was the case with the disaster caused by the slave revolt against the Dorian rulers in Sparta in the 7th century B.C., the reaction to it will be violent."

While McNeill focuses on the exchanges and influences between civilizations, he doesn't believe that humanity will eventually form a unified civilization. He has published a book review in the New York Times criticizing Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama believed that the evolution of human society would end in Western-style democracy and freedom, and that it would knit together at that end. McNeill refutes this idea and argues that humanity will remain civilizationally diverse. The reason he gives is that "Groups just define themselves by how they differ from outsiders, and human nature is changeable, and all genetically inherited tendencies and abilities automatically take on a wide variety of forms." This reasoning isn't really very convincing, but here we can see McNeill's robust optimism, and it's this kind of thinking that ensures that this History of the World is fresh and lively from start to finish.