The Earth and Its Peoples

Bulliet/Crossley/Headrick/Hirsch/Johnson/Northrup's THE EARTH AND ITS PEOPLES: A GLOBAL HISTORY, 8th EDITION, presents world history in a balanced, global framework, shifting the focus away from political centers of power and toward the living conditions and activities of ordinary people. This truly global world history book employs a fundamental theme -- the interaction of human beings and the environment -- to compare different times, places and societies. Special emphasis is given to technology (in its broadest sense) and how technological development underlies all human activity. A new feature called "Daily Life" in each chapter is designed to help students see connections between their everyday experiences and the customs and technologies of the past.

Richard W. Bulliet, Ph.D., (Harvard University) is emeritus professor of Middle Eastern history at Columbia University. He has written scholarly works on a number of topics: the social and economic history of medieval Iran (The Patricians of Nishapur; Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran), the history of human-animal relations (The Camel and the Wheel; Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers), the process of conversion to Islam (Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period), transportation history (The Wheel: Inventions and Reinventions), and the overall course of Islamic social history (Islam: The View From the Edge; The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization). He is the editor of the Columbia History of the Twentieth Century. He has published six novels and coedited The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East. He was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and was named a Carnegie Corporation Scholar.