A Concise Survey of Western Civilization, Combined Edition: Supremacies and Diversities throughout History

This book gives a brief, readable description of our common Western heritage. It covers the minimum historical information that educated adults should know within a tightly-focused narrative and interpretive structure. The joined terms “supremacies and diversities” develop major themes of conflict and creativity. “Supremacies” centers on the use of power to dominate societies, ranging from warfare to ideologies. Supremacy seeks stability, order, and incorporation. “Diversities” encompasses the creative impulse that produces new ideas, as well as people’s efforts to define themselves as “different.” Diversity creates change, opportunity, and individuality. These themes of historical tension and change, whether applied to political, economic, technological, social and cultural trends, offer a bridging explanatory organization. Five other topical themes regularly inform the text: technological innovation, migration and conquest, political and economic decision-making, church and state, and disputes about the meaning of life. Various “Basic Principles” present summaries of historical realities. Primary Source Projects and Sources on Families offer students the chance to evaluate differing points of view about the past. This text is less expensive, less formal, has more attitude, yet still provides all the essentials for a course on Western Civilization.

About the Author

Brian A. Pavlac is professor emeritus of history from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he had served as chair of the department, director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and a Herve A. LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professor. He is the author of Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials and articles on Nicholas of Cusa and excommunication, editor of and contributor to Game of Thrones versus History: Written in Blood , co-author of the forthcoming The Holy Roman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia , and translator of Balderich’s A Warrior Bishop of the 12th Century: The Deeds of Albero of Trier .