A History of Western Society, Volume 2

Bring the history of Western society to life

Praised for its easy-to-read narrative and attention to the lives of ordinary people, A History of Western Society, Fourteenth Edition, includes even more tools to engage students and save instructors time. A signature focus on social and cultural history helps students engage with and think critically about the past. Achieve, a powerful course platform, combines the full e-textbook with a wealth of additional primary sources, tutorials, activities, and assessments that guide students in interpreting primary sources and drawing connections. Achieve can be adopted on its own or in a package with the print book.

Achieve is a flexible, innovative course platform that helps students learn key concepts and think critically about history. The powerful set of resources in Achieve includes the full e-textbook, an integrated reader with dozens of additional primary sources, LearningCurve adaptive quizzes, comprehension quizzes for all boxed features in the book, new Video Activities, new Evaluating Visual Evidence activities, tutorials, and a full suite of instructor resources. Achieve is fully customizable to support your teaching style.

Emphasis on social and cultural history and a readable, accessible narrative humanizes and enlivens the past. "Individuals in Society" biographical portraits highlight the lives of ordinary people, while five special "Life" chapters emphasize daily life in specific time periods.

A wealth of primary sources and special features introduces students to historical interpretation. With over 100 written and visual primary sources in the document features – and more in the integrated reader – students connect to the past through an array of evidence and questions that guide their interpretation.

A rich pedagogical framework engages students and builds historical thinking skills. "Mapping the Past" activities promote geographic literacy, "Looking Back, Looking Ahead" conclusions review the bigger picture, and "Make Connections" questions encourage students to think comparatively within and across chapters.

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks(Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison) is Distinguished Professor of History, emerita, at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She is the long-time Senior Editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal and the author or editor of more than thirty books, including A Concise History of the World. From 2017 to 2019 she served as the president of the World History Association.