Western Civilization: The Continuing Experiment, Brief Edition

The Brief Edition of Western Civilization presents a strong chronological and political framework and seamlessly integrates the social and cultural forces that have shaped the western past. Two related themes are pursued throughout: 1) Europe in relation to the rest of the world and non-Western influences, and 2) power in all its senses, public and private; economic, social, cultural, and political; symbolic and real.

William Cohen (of late) received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1968. His scholarly research focused on French Urbanization, and he was the author of THE FRENCH ENCOUNTER WITH AFRICANS: WHITE RESPONSES TO BLACKS; EUROPEAN EMPIRE BUILDING; RULERS OF EMPIRE; and ROBER DELAVIGNETTE AND THE FRENCH EMPIRE, as well as numerous articles and reviews.

After receiving his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, Thomas Noble taught at Albion College, Michigan State University, Texas Tech University, and the University of Virginia. In 1999 he received the University of Virginia's highest award for teaching excellence and in 2008 Notre Dame's Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2011 he received the Charles Sheedy, C.S.C., award for excellence in teaching and scholarship from Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters. In 2001 he became Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame and in 2008 chairperson of Notre Dame's history department. He is the author of Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, which won the 2011 Otto Gründler Prize, and The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680–825. He has edited six books. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994 and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 1999–2000. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities (three times) and the American Philosophical Society (twice). He was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2004. In 2012 he served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association.

Professor of history and classics at Cornell University, Barry Strauss holds a Ph.D. from Yale. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Academy in Rome, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The MacDowell Colony for the Arts, the Korea Foundation, and the Killam Foundation of Canada. He is the recipient of the Clark Award for excellence in teaching from Cornell. He is Chair of Cornell's Department of History, Director of Cornell's Program on Freedom and Free Societies, and Past Director of Cornell's Peace Studies Program. His many publications include Athens After the Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction, and Policy, 403–386 B.C.; Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War; The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists (with Josiah Ober); Hegemonic Rivalry from Thucydides to the Nuclear Age (coedited with R. New Lebow); War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (coedited with David R. McCann); Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty; The Battle of Salamis, the Naval Encounter That Saved Greece–and Western Civilization; The Trojan War: A New History; The Spartacus War; and Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and the Genius of War. His books have been translated into seven languages. His book The Battle of Salamis was named one of the best books of 2004 by the Washington Post.

A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome with a Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Davis, Duane Osheim is professor of history at the University of Virginia. He has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program. He is author and editor of A Tuscan Monastery and Its Social World; An Italian Lordship: The Bishopric of Lucca in the Late Middle Ages; Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy; and Chronicling History: Chroniclers and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy.

After receiving her Ph.D. from Brown University, Kristen Neuschel taught at Denison University and Duke University, where she is currently associate professor of history and Director of the Thompson Writing Program. She is a specialist in early modern French history and is the author of Word of Honor: Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France and articles on French social history and European women's history. She has received grants from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has also received the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, which is awarded annually on the basis of student nominations for excellence in teaching at Duke.