Help students see the big picture and patterns that shape the past 

Renowned historian J. R. McNeill brings coherence to the sprawling world history survey course with a central guiding theme in The Webs of Humankind. Focusing on webs of interaction and connection—along which technologies, trade, pathogens, religious beliefs, and more traveled—helps students see the regional and global patterns in world history.

McNeill encourages students to explore the many different types of evidence that historians use (linguistic, archaeological, genetic, visual, textual, and more). In the Third Edition, the popular “Human Web” maps have been expanded and made interactive in the Norton Illumine Ebook, and a new Primary Source Collection provides hundreds of extra primary sources.

• New coverage related to food history traces an arc from food serving as basic fuel in the earliest human societies to being at the intersection of political, cultural, economic, religious, and social webs in later periods of world history 
• Expanded scaffolding for reading, learning, and skill practice includes a new “Navigating the Webs of World History” activity that models for students how to successfully use the ebook to support their learning. New “Human Web” map activities help students develop map literacy and interpretation throughout the chapters. And a new Primary Source Collection provides hundreds of extra primary sources in an accessible and interactive ebook format. 
• A new History Skills Tutorial on AI literacy gives instructors an easy-to-assign resource for cultivating student critical thinking and promotes historical thinking in an age of AI.