The Best World History Books 2025

1. One-Dimensional Man : Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Paperback)

Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events.

Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events.

2. Hist of the Church The Reformation, Book 3, (Paperback)

Owen Chadwick stands out as the trustsed authority on Reformation history. Not only is his scholorly knowledge outlined with enough precision to impress any aspiring historian, but Chadwick also manages to convey the facts with a level of underlying passion.

Hist of the Church The Reformation, Book 3, (Paperback) Author: Penguin Books ISBN: 9780140137576 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1990-12-07 Page Count: 464

3. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, (Paperback)

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. A definitive classic, Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence -- from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce -- to show how the urban form has changed throughout human civilization. Mumford explores the factors that made Greek cities uniques and offers a controversial view of the Roman city concept. He explains how the role of monasticism influenced Christian towns and how mercanitile capitalism shapes the modern city today. The City in History remains a powerfully influential work, one that has shaped the agendas of urban planners, sociologists, and social critics since its publication in the 1960s.

The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, (Paperback) Author: Mariner Books ISBN: 9780156180351 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1968-10-23 Page Count: 784

4. Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart, (Paperback)

We've told you HOW TO SHIT IN THE WOODS. We've taken you UP SHIT CREEK. Now, we dare to ask the eternal question...WHO CUT THE CHEESE? Which is to say, what exactly is a fart? Why do we do it? Why do we hide it when we do it? And why do we find farts so darn funny? A cut above anything else on the subject, this book really lets go and tells all, getting to the bottom of these mysteries. Author Jim sniffs out a load of historical and scientific fart tales, then offers the kind of fun facts you'll be dying to let slip at social occasions, in chapters like \"Fart Facts That Aren't Just Hot Air,\" \"Gone with the Wind\" (on famous movie farts), and \"Le Petomane & the Art of the Fart\" (on the most famous windbag in history). From fact to fiction to frivolous flatulence, this book is unquestionably a ripping good read.

Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart, (Paperback) Author: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed ISBN: 9781580080118 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1998-12-01 Page Count: 192

5. The Conquest of America (Paperback) by Professor Tzvetan Todorov

9780061320958. New condition. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 288. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 288 p. Contains: Illustrations. A fascinating study of cultural confrontation in the New World, with implications far beyond sixteenth-century America, The Conquest of America has become a classic in its field. It offers an original interpretation of the discovery of America by Columbus and of the subsequent conquest, colonization, and destruction of Mexico and the Caribbean by the Spaniards at the beginning of the modern era. Using sixteenth-century sources, the distinguished French writer and critic Tzvetan Todorov examines the beliefs and behavior of both the Spanish conquistadors and the Aztecs, adversaries in a clash of cultures that resulted in the neat extermination of Mesoamerica's Indian population. Absorbing, intelligent, and responsible in its call for a much-needed dialogue between different cultures, The Conquest of America evokes a drama that set the pattern for much of the history of Western colonialism.

The Conquest of America

6. World Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, Vol. 2 by Phillip Lee Ralph

World Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, Vol. 2 by Phillip Lee Ralph. Features include: 9780393968811 0393968812, Paperback, 960 pages, Edition: 9. Published by: W. W. Norton & Company on 1997-07-05.

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7. Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization, (Paperback)

Flesh and Stone is the story of the deepest parts of life--how women and men moved in public and private spaces, what they saw and heard, the smells that assailed them, where they ate, how they dressed, the mores of bathing and of making love--all in the architecture of stone and space from ancient Athens to modern New York. Early in Flesh and Stone, Richard Sennett probes the ways in which the ancient Athenians experienced nakedness, and the relation of nakedness to the shape of the ancient city, its troubled politics, and the inequalities between men and women. The story then moves to Rome in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, exploring Roman beliefs in the geometrical perfection of the body. The second part of the book examines how Christian beliefs about the body related to the Christian city--the Venetian ghetto, cloisters, and markets in Paris. The final part of Flesh and Stone deals with what happened to urban space as modern scientific understanding of the body cut free from pagan and Christian beliefs. Flesh and Stone makes sense of our constantly evolving urban living spaces, helping us to build a common home for the increased diversity of bodies that make up the modern city.

Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization, (Paperback) Author: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 9780393313918 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1996-03-01 Page Count: 432

8. Queen Victoria's Little Wars, (Paperback)

Tells all the old stories of imperial heroism con brio. Noel Annan, New York Review of Books

Queen Victoria's Little Wars, (Paperback) Author: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 9780393302356 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1985-06-01 Page Count: 432

9. Dover Fine Art, History of Art: The Disasters of War (Paperback)

Visual indictment of war's horrors, modeled after Spanish insurrection (1808), the resultant Peninsular War and following famine. Miseries of war graphically demonstrated in 83 prints. Captions reprinted with new English translations.

The strikingly original characterizations and sharply drawn scenes that came to be known posthumously as Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) are among Francisco Goya's most powerful works and one of the masterpieces of Western civilization. Goya's model for his visual indictment of war and its horrors was the Spanish insurrection of 1808 and the resulting Peninsular War with Napoleonic France. The bloody conflict and the horrible famine of Madrid were witnessed by Goya himself, or were revealed to him from the accounts of friends and contemporaries. From 1810 to 1820, he worked to immortalize them in a series of etchings. The artist himself never saw the results. The etchings were not published until 1863, some 35 years after his death. By then, the passions of the Napoleonic era had subsided and the satirical implications in Goya's work were less likely to offend. The Dover edition reproduces in its original size the second state of this first edition, which contained 80 prints. Three additional prints not in the 1863 edition are also included here, making this the most complete collection possible of the etchings Goya intended for this series. The bitter, biting captions are reprinted, along with the new English translations, as are the original title page and preface.

10. History of the Arab Peoples (Paperback)

Encyclopedic and panoramic in its scope, this fascinating work chronicles the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutions of Arab history through 13 centuries.

History of the Arab Peoples (Paperback)