The West

A. Daniel Frankforter is Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University, where he has taught for nearly four decades.  His undergraduate work was in the history of ideas and philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College.  He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Drew University, did graduate work at Columbia University and the University of Göttingen and completed master’s and doctoral degrees in medieval history and religious studies at Penn State.  His research has focused on the medieval English Church and on the evolving role of European women throughout the medieval period.  Articles on these topics have appeared in such journals asManuscripta,Church History,The British Studies Monitor,The Catholic Historical Review,The American Benedictine Review, The International Journal of Women’s Studies, and The Journal of Women’s History.  His books include:A History of the Christian Movement:An Essay on the Development of Christian Institutions,Civilization and Survival,The Shakespeare Name Dictionary (with J. Madison Davis),The Medieval Millennium: An Introduction, The Western Heritage, Brief Edition (with Donald Kagan, Stephen Ozment, and Frank Turner),The Heritage of World Civilizations, brief third edition (with Albert Craig, William Graham, Donald Kagan, Stephen Ozment, and Frank Turner), an edition and translation of Poullain de la Barre’s De L’Égalité des deux Sexes, andStones for Bread: A Critique of Contemporary Worship.  Over the course of his career he has developed 15 courses dealing with aspects of the ancient and medieval periods of Western civilization, Judeo-Christian studies, and gender issues.  His work in the classroom has been acknowledged by the Penn State Behrend Excellence in Teaching Award and the prestigious Amoco Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching Performance.     William M. Spellman is the Dean of Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.  He is a graduate of Suffolk University, Boston, and holds the Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.  He is the author of John Locke and the Problem of Depravity (Oxford, 1988); The Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 1660-1700 (Georgia, 1993); John Locke (Macmillan, 1995); European Political Thought, 1600-1700 (Macmillan, 1997); Monarchies, 1000-2000 (Reaktion Press, 2000); Extraordinary Women of the Medieval and Renaissance World (Greenwood Press, 2000) co-authored with Carole Levin, et. al.; The Global Community: Migration and the Making of the Modern World, 1500-2000 (Sutton, 2002); A Concise History of the World Since 1945 (Palgrave, 2006); and Migration and the Nation State (Reaktion Press, forthcoming).  

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Introduction

 

PART ONE: DEPARTURE PREHISTORY TO 1000 BCE

 

Chapter 1: The Birth of Civilization

Larger Issue: How do environments shape human communities and human communities alter environments?

    The Evolution of the Prehistoric Cultures 

    The Archaic States  

    The Origin of Civilization in Mesopotamia: Sumer  

    The Rise of Civilization in Egypt

 

Chapter 2: The Rise of Empires and the Beginning of the Iron Age

Larger Issue: Does civilization promote or intensify divisions among peoples?

    The Transition States

    Imperial Egypt: The New Kingdom 

    The Indo-Europeans and the Clash of Empires

    The Bible and History

 

PART TWO: THE CLASSICAL ERA 2000 BCE to 30 CE

 

Chapter 3: Aegean Civilizations

Larger Issue: When does civilization in the West become “Western” civilization?

    Minoan Mentors

    The Mycenaeans, Greece’s First Civilization 

    The Aegean Dark Age

    The Hellenic Era

    The Rise of the Mainland Powers

    The Persian Wars: Crucible of a Civilization

 

Chapter 4: The Hellenic Era

Larger Issue: What did the Greeks contribute to the development of modern civilization?

    Persian Wars as Catalyst

    The Peloponnesian War 

    Intellectual and Artistic Life in the Polis

 


Chapter 5: The Hellenistic Era and the Rise of Rome

Larger Issue: What circumstances are likely to undermine governments by the people?

    The Hellenistic Era

    The Origin of Rome

    The Roman Republic

    Rome’s Civil War

 

Chapter 6: Rome’s Empire and the Unification of the Western World

Larger Issue:  Do people prefer order to liberty?

    The Augustan Era 

    Order and Continuity: The Dynastic Option 

    Order and Continuity: The Elective Option 

    Life in an Imperial Environment 

    The Decline of Rome

 

PART THREE: THE DIVISION OF THE WEST 300 TO 1300

 

Chapter 7: The West’s Medieval Civilizations

Larger Issue:  Should freedom of religion be limited?

    The Christian Element 

    The German Element 

    The Byzantine Empire of Constantinople 

    Islam

 

Chapter 8: The Emergence of Europe

Larger Issue: How did Europe build on its legacies from the ancient world?

    The Merovingian Kingdom: Europe’s Nucleus

    The Franks’ Neighbors 

    The Carolingian Era 

    Retrenchment and Reorganization 

    The Culture of Europe’s Dark Age

 

Chapter 9: Europe Turns Outward

Larger Issue: Was conflict among the medieval civilizations inevitable?

    Islam’s Crest and Byzantium’s Resurgence

    The Reorganization of Feudal Europe

    The Eleventh-Century Turning Point

 

Chapter 10: Europe’s High Middle Ages

Larger Issue: Why are some societies more open to change than others?

    The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century

    Universities and Scholasticism

    Religious Revival and Diversity of Opinion

    The Artistic Vision of the High Middle Ages

    Government in the High Middle Ages

 

PART FOUR: CHALLENGES, CONFLICTS, AND DEPARTURES 1300 to 1700

 

Chapter 11: Challenges to the Medieval Order

Larger Issue: What did the crises of the late medieval era reveal about the strengths and weaknesses of Europe’s civilization?

    Challenges from Nature  

    Turmoil in the Middle East 

    Spiritual Crises 

    Political Responses: The Burdens of War

 

Chapter 12: Renaissance and Exploration

Larger Issue: How should a society use its history?

    The Context for the Renaissance  

    The Culture of the Renaissance 

    The Northern Renaissance  

    The Middle East: The Ottoman Empire 

    Europe and Atlantic Exploration

 

Chapter 13: Reformation, Religious Wars, and National Conflicts

Larger Issue: How do civilized societies justify war?

    The Lutheran Reformation

    The Swiss Reformation 

    The Catholic Reformation 

    The Habsburg-Valois Wars 

    England’s Ambivalent Reformation 

    Convergence of Foreign and Domestic Politics: England, Spain, and France 

    The Final Religious Upheaval