Western Civilization

Jackson J. Spielvogel is Associate Professor Emeritus of History at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation History under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as Moreana, Journal of General Education, Catholic Historical Review, Archiv Für Reformationsgeschichte and America Historical Review. He also has contributed chapters or articles to THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF REFORMATION, THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A DICTIONARY HANDBOOK, THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ANNUAL OF HOLOCAUST STUDIES and UTOPIAN STUDIES. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western Civilization course as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. His book, HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY, was first published in 1987 (8th Edition, 2020). In addition, he is the author of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, first published in 1991 (11th Edition, 2021) and co-author (with William Duiker) of WORLD HISTORY, first published in 1994 (9th Edition, 2019). Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. During the 1988–1989 year, he held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award. He won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty member in 1996 and received the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000.

1. The Ancient Near East: The First Civilizations.
2. The Ancient Near East: Peoples and Empires.
3. The Civilization of the Greeks.
4. The Hellenistic World.
5. The Roman Republic.
6. The Roman Empire.
7. Late Antiquity and the Emergence of the Medieval World.
8. European Civilization in the Early Middle Ages, 750–1000.
9. The Recovery and Growth of European Society in the High Middle Ages.
10. The Rise of Kingdoms and the Growth of Church Power.
11. The Later Middle Ages: Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century.
12. Recovery and Rebirth: The Age of the Renaissance.
13. Reformation and Religious Warfare in the Sixteenth Century.
14. Europe and The World: New Encounters, 1500–1800.
15. State Building and the Search for Order in the Seventeenth Century.
16. Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: The Scientific Revolution and the Emergence of Modern Science.