World history in brief : major patterns of change and continuity (4th ed)

* Understanding Culture sections help students explore cultural causation and other cultural issues in world history. * An increased number of World Profiles (formerly Biographical Portraits) provide additional emphasis on the human component of world history.

Website references allow further exploration as well. * A Companion Website provides students and professors with a wealth of resources, including a syllabus manager, student practice tests, web activities, chapter links, and a glossary. * A StudyWizard CD-ROM helps students learn the major facts of concepts of world history through drill and practice exercises and diagnostic feedback.

Students receive individual, self-paced review of text material using multiple-choice, short-answer, and true/false questions, and detailed feedback. * Web Links at the end of each chapter encourage students to further explore a particular topic or period.* A comprehensive, full-color Gatefold Timeline, free in every new copy of the text, gives students a chronological context in which to place their knowledge and compare important political and diplomatic, social and economic, and cultural and technological events as they occurred across the regions. * History Debates, included in almost every chapter, offer students a brief (two paragraphs) topic about which historians are currently debating.

Topics include Is Latin America part of the West?, Why did slavery end when it did?, What is Western civilization? etc. Students get an opportunity to see that the discipline is focused on actively debating the past. * Chapter openers called Focal Points frame each chapter by raising key questions and thereby setting learning goals. * World History In Brief is the most accessible, most affordable world history text available in the market.

Its brevity allows instructors and students flexibility about what additional readings will be included in their study of world history.* The text focuses only on big picture topics so students understand major themes and developments in world history rather than memorizing an array of unconnected facts. * The text is organized chronologically by civilizations allowing for easy and orderly understanding by students.