Contemporary World History

Citation

Duiker, W. J. (2021). Contemporary World History (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Chapter Summary

The seventh edition (copyright 2021, published January 2020) is a 416-page textbook in sixteen chapters grouped into five parts. The publisher describes a chronologically ordered synthesis that integrates political, economic, social and cultural history, takes a global approach while respecting the distinct character of individual civilizations and regions, and has been updated with new scholarship and recent events in the economy, society, climate change and international affairs. Chapters carry timelines comparing cultures and nations, detailed maps and smaller spot maps, "Historians Debate" sections, "Opposing Viewpoints" primary-source excerpts, concluding sections and "Reflections" essays, and photographs from the author's own collection.

Part I: New World in the Making (Chapters 1–3)

Chapter 1, The Rise of Industrial Society in the West, sets out the starting point: industrialization in Europe and North America. Chapter 2, The High Tide of Imperialism: Africa and Asia in an Era of Western Dominance, and Chapter 3, Shadows over the Pacific: East Asia Under Challenge, turn to the regions under Western pressure around 1900, with East Asia given a chapter of its own.

Part II: Cultures in Collision (Chapters 4–6)

Chapter 4, War and Revolution: World War I and Its Aftermath, covers the war and the revolutionary settlements that followed it. Chapter 5, Nationalism, Revolution, and Dictatorship: Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America from 1919 to 1939, gives the interwar years outside Europe a full chapter. Chapter 6, The Crisis Deepens: The Outbreak of World War II, leads into the Second World War.

Part III: Across the Ideological Divide (Chapters 7–10)

Chapter 7, East and West in the Grip of the Cold War, introduces the postwar rivalry. Three regional chapters follow: The United States, Canada, and Latin America (Chapter 8); Brave New World: The Rise and Fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Chapter 9); and Postwar Europe: On the Path to Unity? (Chapter 10).

Part IV: Third World Rising (Chapters 11–15)

The longest part is organised region by region: Toward the Pacific Century? Japan and the Little Tigers (Chapter 11); The East Is Red: China Under Communism (Chapter 12); Nationalism Triumphant: The Emergence of Independent States in South and Southeast Asia (Chapter 13); Emerging Africa (Chapter 14); and Ferment in the Middle East (Chapter 15).

Part V: The New Millennium (Chapter 16)

A single closing chapter, Constructing a New World Order, brings the narrative into the twenty-first century; its title frames the period after the Cold War as a search for a new international order.

Key Concepts

Parts I–II: Industrial society, empire and world war

• Industrial society: the economic and social order created by industrialization in the West, the book's starting point.
• High imperialism: Western dominance over Africa and Asia at the turn of the twentieth century.
• Interwar nationalism and dictatorship: the movements and regimes in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America between 1919 and 1939.

Parts III–V: Cold War, decolonization and the new millennium

• Ideological divide: the Cold War rivalry between capitalist and communist systems that organises Part III.
• Rise and fall of communism: the history of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe told as one arc.
• "Third World" rising: the emergence of independent states and new powers in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
• New world order: the attempt to describe the international system after the Cold War.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Genuinely global coverage. Five of the sixteen chapters are devoted to Asia, Africa and the Middle East after 1945, and further chapters to East Asia before 1914 and to Asia, the Middle East and Latin America between the wars; Europe and North America do not dominate the second half of the book.
• An author with Asian expertise. Duiker is Professor Emeritus of East Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University, a former US diplomat, and the author of books on Vietnam and modern China, including a biography of Ho Chi Minh nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. That background shows in the separate chapters on East Asia, China, Japan and the "Little Tigers", and South and Southeast Asia.
• Built-in historiography and sources. "Historians Debate" sections show how interpretations differ, and "Opposing Viewpoints" pairs primary-source excerpts for analysis, giving students practice beyond the narrative.
• Manageable length. At sixteen chapters and about 400 pages, the book fits a single semester at roughly one chapter a week.

Limitations

• Regional chapters after 1945. Because Parts III and IV are organised by region, students have to assemble cross-regional themes such as decolonization or economic change from several chapters themselves.
• A single chapter on recent decades. Part V consists of one chapter, so the period since the end of the Cold War receives comparatively little space.
• Starts in the late nineteenth century. The first chapter begins with industrial society in the West, so students without earlier world history will meet the background to imperialism and industrialization only in brief.

Where It Fits in the Course

Duiker is the introductory textbook of this course, written for students meeting twentieth-century world history for the first time. William R. Keylor's The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond covers the same span as an international history centred on relations among the powers, with more diplomatic detail; Duiker gives more weight to social and cultural history and to developments inside Asian, African and Latin American societies. Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes is an interpretive single-author history of 1914–1991, best read once Duiker's chronology is familiar.

For particular parts of Duiker, the course offers focused studies: Robert J. McMahon's The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction as a brief companion to Chapter 7, Odd Arne Westad's The Global Cold War for the interventions in Asia, Africa and Latin America that run through Parts III–IV, and Mark Mazower's Dark Continent for an interpretive history of twentieth-century Europe alongside Chapters 4, 9 and 10.

How to Use This Book

No prior university-level history is required. A one-semester plan:

• Weeks 1–6: Parts I–II (Chapters 1–6), from industrial society to the outbreak of the Second World War. Chapter 5 is essential for a global course, since it covers the interwar period outside Europe.
• Weeks 7–10: Part III (Chapters 7–10). Read Chapter 7 first; the three regional chapters can be taken in any order.
• Weeks 11–15: Part IV (Chapters 11–15) and Chapter 16. Instructors with less time can choose two or three regional chapters and set the others as independent reading.
• Alongside the text: use the "Opposing Viewpoints" documents for seminar discussion and the "Historians Debate" sections as essay prompts; compare the timelines across chapters to see what was happening in different regions at the same time.