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World History: Patterns of Interaction Review
User Submitted World History: Patterns of Interaction ReviewsNovember 29, 2008 World History Book Review I couldn't have been more surprised or pleased to be able to purchase a brand new copy of this book at such a great price and have it arrive so quickly! October 29, 2008 Selling a Message I purchased this book to read in preparation for my CSET (California Subject Examination for Teachers) test in Social Science. It covers the standards required, but I find it lacking in many other respects. This book reads like a list of facts interjected with how cultural blending and how "such interaction has resulted in the mixing of different cultures in new and exciting ways". Now let me preface my next statement by saying that cultural understanding, appreciation and tolerance are vital to a healthy country and people. I find world cultures fascinating, or I would not be in the field that I wish to teach in. But this book is so busy beating you over the head with the fact that you should like cultural blending (it says this phrase at least once a page for well over 1000 pages) that it sort of loses the series of events in a fog of social messages. Cultural blending is something that happens all the time in this world, and often results out of conquest, migrations, trade, and pursuit of religious freedom - as the book points out. However, I feel they sometimes make stretches to drive their point home to the point of losing other themes of intolerance, domination and genocide (which is certainly not limited to WWII). It only gives passing mention to the butchering of people for their beliefs on a massive scale as Protestants and Catholics vied for power politically. It talks about the Shi'a Muslim Safavids and the Sunni Ottoman Turks butchering each other for their rivaling religious views but does not talk about how that may somehow have consequences in today's rift between the two groups. I'm not sure! This book is too busy telling me that the next ruler exported carpets and bought Chinese tiles and how that is cultural blending - not the consequences of 40,000 killed. There are only shallow analyses in this book. The "consequences" or "legacies" that are so important are only addressed in the conclusions of a few units. The chapters are organized in a thematic fashion, so it will jump continents and cultures every other unit from England to India to Africa. It also jumps around with the dates a lot as it is *not* chronological. I found it helpful when studying to make my own time lines to get a decent perspective on how things fit together. In the second half the book, however it seems to take a completely different tone. Beginning with the Age of Exploration, the preachy quality of it dwindles and it focuses on what happened and why. Of course, European power struggles of the 1500-1700's don't really allow digression because of their convoluted nature! So, did it serve my purpose? In some ways, yes. I will do well on my exam given that this material correlates with the standards on the test. However I would say this coverage is minimal, and if you are a high schooler reading this, this is NOT the book that will tell you whether you like history or not. This is strictly a list of facts to be regurgitated on a test with some values of tolerance sprinkled in. September 21, 2008 Exactly what we were expecting We bought a new book, at 30% less cost than what the book store was selling it for. Well worth waiting 10 days or so to get it. July 27, 2005 World History: Patterns of Interactions Book received in excellent condition and in timely manner. I would recommend using this site to other parents buying textbooks. June 18, 2004 Average World History Book World History Patterns of Interaction is a fairly good book for the basics, but the authors do not do the best at linking everything together. The pictures complements the text nicely. But the book is not geographically split into chapters it is chronological (A bit frustrating for me). The book concentrates on the details that are not of great value. There are better world history books in the market. January 29, 2004 Don't buy. If you're reading this, you're probably either a very odd little child who wants to do some extra reading or you're a teacher or homeschooling parent.. so I'll speak to the latter two. This book is terrible. I was shocked to find that the object of many hours of study for my IB World History class was this middle school-level book. It's filled with more pictures and phony biographical sketches than information and (heaven forbid) intelligent analysis. Not only is it monotonous and dull, it's superficial. One thing I found is the end of the Viking terror in Europe is justified in this book by two reasons alone: the acceptance of Christianity and an increase in agricultural projects due to warmer climate. This answer is vague and misleading. Although the climate did increase, it did not lead the Vikings simply to lounge around and farm. What happened was they moved to Iceland and Greenland, where the land was suddenly more inhabitable. What is also intentially misleading here is the part about accepting a new religion. The point was that there was a distinct change in philosophy - dying for their pagan god was once considered a great honor, but without him there was little point - not a change in moral values as the wording suggests. As my book quotes, "the Vikings were awesome." Sure, this is only a considerably minor fault for such a large book, but there are too many similar examples. This book is a poor choice. Unfortunately, most textbooks do fall behind in their purpose. I would suggest finding a better book but not sticking soley to it, as textbooks tend to have their faults. Resources such as the History channel and historical articles are effective and much more interesting. Guns Germs and Steel is also a great choice. Please use them to your advantage and save another unfortunate child the torture of reading this. October 30, 2001 A great book with detail and no run arounds this book should be it when it comes to college lectures and so forth. the amount of money that is spent by college teens, etc is really exaggerated .professors wanting so many books and in fact many of these books do not have any photos. i have used this book and the readings are simple, it is "the get to the point thing" .there is no mystery here as compared to the professor who acts like if he or she is the only one who knows history or thinks he or she knows the emperors of the past. you would be surprised that the simple readings help one understand that history is simple but barriers by teachers and professors is all there is to it. simple reading, colorful photos, worth it. the other guys are just lazy if they dont want to read. May 19, 2001 Awesome Book I used this book as a student in my world history class. I couldn't stop reading it and even skipped some of the chapters we were supposed to be reading in the course. I recommend this book to any teachers who teach history. It is very informative. The only problem is that it is VERY big and you can't fit it into a backpack well June 2, 2000 Great book! This book is really pretty darn good! It makes things pretty interesting when you are not interested in History. I use it and I am homeschooed in the 8th grade. I will also use it next year, it's a great two year program. I don't know why the other two reviewers didn't like it but I find it a lot better than previous history books. April 16, 2000 It's pretty good...don't listen to the guy above me Ok This is a pretty good textbook. Now...it's not great...it can make somethings pretty boring. I'm in 9th grade, and I think that it will help me with the regents exam that I will have to take. It also has some pretty interesting info on topics that it is teaching u. Ex: When you're learning about Africa, on the side of the page, there's a thing on the tsetse fly. Teachers, will find this to be helpful. For more World History: Patterns of Interaction reviews click here.
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