Amazon.com description: Product Description: Noted teachers and scholars William J. Duiker and Jackson J. Spielvogel present a balanced, highly readable overview of world history that explores common challenges and experiences that unite the human past and identify key global patterns over time. Thorough coverage of political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military history is integrated into a chronological framework to help students gain an appreciation and understanding of the distinctive character and development of individual cultures in society. This edition of WORLD HISTORY continues to take a global approach to world history, with an emphasis on analytical comparisons between and among cultures throughout history. This approach helps students link events together in a broad comparative and global framework, thereby placing the contemporary world in a more meaningful historical context.