1.10: This Textbook

This textbook has been revised significantly on two occasions to date. The original version of the textbook was released as an Open Educational Resource in March 2019.  It was revised and released as “Version 2.0” in September of 2021.  The current “Version 3.0” was released in May of 2024. Over time, in addition to routine factual corrections, the revisions have focused on three major areas: expanding coverage of gender roles and women’s history, including the history of the Middle East as an integral part of the narrative, and incorporating a world-historical perspective, emphasizing connections and parallels between “western” history and the histories of other regions.

The core narrative of the textbook is a political history of the greater Mediterranean region in the ancient period in Volume 1, Europe and European empires in the medieval and early modern periods in Volume 2, and both European and world history in the modern period in Volume 3. Elements of intellectual, cultural, social, and religious history are present throughout, but the main focus of the text is politics over time. 

Please note that the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License under which the textbook is released allows anyone the right to freely use, modify, and redistribute it so long as it is not used for commercial purposes. As a courtesy, I request that my name be included as the original author. In addition, while I welcome factual corrections and suggestions via email, I am unable to provide research assistance for students outside of my own institution and I am also unable to provide custom versions of the textbook for other instructors.

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