A Concise History of the World

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is Distinguished Professor of History Emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is the long-time senior editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal, editor-in-chief of the seven-volume Cambridge World History (2015), and co-editor, with Mathew Kuefler, of the four-volume Cambridge World History of Sexualities (2024). She is the author or editor of many articles and forty books that have appeared in ten European and Asian languages.

'Few authors have the courage to write a short history of the long human career, and fewer still have the skill to pull it off. Merry Wiesner-Hanks succeeds admirably in fashioning an intelligible story out of the seeming chaos of history. Her book is unique among world histories in the extent of its attention to gender, marriage, family, inequality, and other social themes.' John McNeill, author of The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History

• Introduction; 1. Foraging and farming families, to 3000 BCE; 2. Cities and classical societies, 3000 BCE–500 CE; 3. Expanding networks of interaction, 500 CE–1500 CE; 4. A new world of connections, 1500 CE–1800 CE; 5. Industrialization, imperialism, and inequality, 1800 CE–2025 CE .