The Earth and Its People: A Global History Complete

by Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Lyman L. Johnson

Although this brief edition is two-thirds the length of its full-length counterpart, it retains coverage of all major themes and provides a truly global perspective on world history, without over-emphasizing Europe or the U.S. The Earth and Its Peoples focuses on the interaction of human beings and the environment, using this central theme to compare different times, places, and societies. Special emphasis is given to technology and how technological development underlies all human activity. Ideal for one-semester survey courses or courses where instructors want to supplement their textbook with many primary sources, this text has been carefully abbreviated to maintain the essential narrative of world history. Specific areas of improved coverage are the early Americas, Russia, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. Structural updates include earlier coverage of the Americas and a chronologically organized section on the period from 1945 to the present.

Genres: History, World History, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Read For School, School, Reference

661 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Pamela Kyle Crossley is an historian who specializes in the history of modern China and northern Asia. Currently, she is Professor of History at Dartmouth College. She is a founding appointment of the Dartmouth Society of Fellows.

Reviews

[Vincenita Holattabaloney]

Like most historic works, it made me cry...
but not because it was so emotionally moving, oh no... I spent hours upon hours hunched over this crazily-detailed textbook on 10,000 YEARS OF WORLD HISTORY solely because I made the grave mistake of taking AP World History.

In case you're wondering, I actually read ALL 33 chapters, as did all WHAP students, and it took all of my will-power to not burn this book once the final was over...as my copy belonged to the school...
Not only did we have to read this brick-with-words, but we did debates on it, powerpoints, presentations, posters, and more on it, which required us to reread passages...as if it wasn't painful the first time around...but needless to say, this was a real tear-jerker

If any of you guys are taking AP World next year,0/10, would not recommend.

But some of you like a challenge and will take AP World anyways, and you know what? that's okay...at least you can be that annoying friend who makes history references all the time that no one else gets. Historical fiction will also make a little more sense now...and you'll now know the answers to half of the questions on "Jeopardy!"...

Happy reading!!! *insert sarcastic laugh*

[Vysloczil]

It's a high-school book written by eminent historians. As compared to many other works, it covers all areas of the world through all relevant time periods. I often use it as a quick reference, and it is a good addition to any bookshelf that holds lots of (economic) history. Of course, it lacks depth on specific topics, but the authors refer to relevant texts on the research frontier and point out weaknesses and future avenues for historians.

It is a good balance for someone who is mostly exposed to economic history written by economic historians. It can be viewed as a good complement to eminent texts like Rondo Cameron's "A Concise Economic History of the World."

[Natalie]

To be honest my rating for this is kind of meaningless because I read it as a textbook for a class. I just wanted to document that I read it because for the first time ever I read the entire textbook.

[Ana Lucia]

I suppose this is my first finished book of 2022 for a reason. There are so many irrelevant parts in each chapter, so I don't recommend reading it thoroughly.

Ch. 12 and 13 were the best though :)

[elise rose]

Awesome book. ❤️

[Savannah Price]

technically I'm not finished reading this but I've done the last of the assigned reading so here we are

[Lea]

help

[Daniel Kukwa]

Incredibly dense and thorough...it is CERTAINLY informative. However, it's also a very dry read, and comes complete with an incredibly dry sense of design, layout and style. Guaranteed to put any AP History student to sleep, in spite of its brilliant text content.

[JR Snow]

Listened to lectures on apple podcasts. Better as a historiography course on world history than lectures on the subject. The book seems to be well laid out, obsession with globalism and national equal opportunity aside. :-)

[Dianna Thiel]

This is a high school AP text book. Gives a good general overall view of human history.

[Daniel Gabrielsen]

Might be regarded as dry by some, although if all you want is a no nonsense survey of the human history that is well illustrated and organised it is one of the better options.

[Claudia]

No hard feelings towards the author I just rated this out of rage for my AP world history class

[jules]

i hate school

[Robyn]

My tears forever stain the pages of this book.

[Angela Kang]

well technically, I finished this textbook in the middle of May, before taking the World History AP test.
This textbook was pretty difficult for me to get through.
Sure, a lot of interesting extra cultural/technical information. But it was hard to get through (of course) and the organization was really not the best.
However, contrary to a lot of what the other students thought, it did help me in grasping the small things of the big ideas, in the end.

[Carinna Tarvin]

Yes, it's my job. But I AM spending a lot of time reading this sucker when I wish I was reading other books, and I AM going to finish it this year and feel super triumphant. I want it to be a part of my 2014 reading challenge! It counts!

PS- it's a lot more enjoyable to read than the Stearns AP World History book I had to read the last two years. Mostly clear. Not terribly interesting, but it doesn't make me hate history like the other one did.

[Beth]

This is the textbook we used for the class I was a teaching assistant for this semester--I really enjoyed this. The layout is nice, the writing is clear, and it reinforced the themes of our class well. While this isn't the edition we used (the 2010 edition isn't up on Goodreads yet)...I would recommend this textbook to anyone looking for a good overview of world history.

[Ash]

Uber boring! I fell asleep at least five times while reading it.....In short: what I learned from this book was...WAY TOO MUCH!


My head couldn't take it. Good luck Freshmen! :P

[Sierra]

history book

[Stephanie reyes]

even though i didnt read the entire thing i think this book taught me alot!!

[Kristine Chambers]

Meh. What can you say about a textbook? I definitely learned a lot.

[Robyn Philactos]

this was the most boring history book i've ever read. it has good information for an AP class, but it did not give enough details ; it mostly gave overviews of historical events.

[Marisa Landsverk]

[Aaron Gamino]

this book was ok not realy a good book

[Timothy]

I am using the third edition as the text-book for my AP World history class.

[mahfuza]

I tried scanning my history book and it worked I didn't expect that

[Casey]

I literally read the history of the world in my AP World class with this textbook. Read it front to back and have learned a lot.

[Jenna]

Textbook used for my AP world history class. Read all chapters, cover to cover. Section reviews at the end of each section were life saving when I had to read one chapter a week.

[David]

BORING. I fell asleep so many times. Has decent information, but really boring.

[Brian Le]

I love this book as much as I love WHAP
god bless