The Rise of the West. Volume 2

William McNeill's The Rise of the West, known for its ambitious chronological scope and scholarly precision, won the National Book Award for Historical Research in 1964. The author presents world history as a unified whole-in the spirit of the concept of the interpenetration of cultures developed by American anthropologists in the 1930s. According to him, it is the interactions between individual civilizations that determine the direction of historical development and serve as the engine of social change.

Volume 2 of this major study examines the revival of the Middle East and the development of China and the Far East in the period 600-1000; the conquests of the steppe peoples up to 1500 and the reaction of the Islamic world, as well as the situation of Indians, Christians, and Jews under Muslim rule; traces the cultural rise of Western Europe in the late Middle Ages; and highlights the unique character of Western European civilization.

The final, third part of the book analyses the era of Western domination from 1500 to the present: the great geographical discoveries and their global significance; the changed face of Europe and the development of the Americas between 1500 and 1650; and traces the dynamics of international relations between 1500 and 1700. It focuses on the unstable world balance between 1700-1850; the absorption of new lands and the spread of European settlers; the reforms of the Ottoman Empire and the uprisings of Christians; the collapse of the Mughal Empire in India and the crisis in the Far East; the rise of the West and the changes in the rest of the world from 1850 to 1950.

The Rise of the West is one of the most important historical studies of the development of human civilization that has remained relevant to this day.