The Rise of the West

“The most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind.” —H. R. Trevor-Roper, The New York Times Book Review The Rise of the West , winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every s