Early Modern Europe 1500/1789 Author:John B. Wolf Two assumptions underlie the Scott, Foresman World Civilization series: first, that there is such a thing as world history and not merely the history of separate civilizations and barbarisms coexisting in different parts of the world without important relations one with another; and second, that people learn more easily and with greater satisfac... more »tion if information is organized into a more complex intellectual framework than the bald matrix of a catalogue arranged according to proximity in time and space. Interpretation, then, with all the risks of omission and individual idiosyncrasy on the part of the authors; and synthesis, with whatever risks of error on the part of the editor, are the goals for which we have striven.
This particular text is intended as an introduction to the three centuries after 1500, a period vital in the formation of the institutions of Western society. Hopefully, it will provide insight into the complex development of the bureaucratic police state and the international institution of the balance of power that are characteristic of Western society. It should also help to explain the processes in Western civilization that allowed European men to dominate the globe and impose their political and economic institutions upon other people.« less