Product Review

A new entry in the Longman World History Series, this volume is a perfect supplement to a World History or Western Civilization course as well as introductory courses on Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Each book in the Longman World History Series, edited by Michael Adas, focuses on a prominent theme, process, or pattern in global history, and treats the topic in a cross-cultural and comparative manner.

 

In Expansion and Global Interaction: 1200-1700, David Ringrose, an established historian of Spain and the Spanish empire, explores the dynamism that arose everywhere in the world after 1200 and shows how a series of autonomous societies became interdependent on a global scale by 1700. By examining the five major arenas of conflict, ranging from Imperial China to the Aztec and Inca Empires, he illustrates how political, cultural, and economic zones of influence expanded and overlapped. The author concludes with the observation that, by 1700, Europeans were influential across the globe, but were not yet dominant in more than a few areas and, as of 1700, their power in the nineteenth century would have been hard to predict.