Over a million students at thousands of schools have learned about world history with the best selling book for the course,Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. Using the twin themes oftraditionsandencounters, the text emphasizes both the distinctive patterns of historical development within individual societies and the profound results of interactions between different societies. Exploring the historical record of cross-cultural interactions and exchanges,Traditions and Encountersplaces the world of contemporary globalization in historical context. The book helps students understand the world's major societies and shows how the interactions of these societies affect history throughout the world. The authors tell a coherent and digestible story of the past that is not weighed down by excessive detail, so instructors are able to incorporate additional readings. This edition provides an updated map program as well as the latest scholarship. It also moves Primary Source Investigator online, improving access for students to work with primary sources.

Jerry H. Bentley is professor of history at the University of Hawai`i and editor of the Journal of World History. His research on the religious, moral, and political writings of Renaissance humanists led to the publication of Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1983) and Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples (Princeton, 1987). More recently, his research has concentrated on global history and particularly on processes of cross-cultural interaction. His book Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York, 1993) examines processes of cultural exchange and religious conversion before the modern era, and his pamphlet Shapes of World History in Twentieth-Century Scholarship (Washington, D.C., 1996) discusses the historiography of world history. His current interests include processes of cross-cultural interaction and cultural exchanges in modern times. .

.Hebert F. Ziegler is an associate professor of history at the University of Hawai'i. He has taught courses on world history for the last 19 years and is currently the director of the world history program at the University of Hawai'i. For several years, he also served as the book review editor of the 'Journal of World History'. His interest in twentieth-century European social and political history led to the publication of 'Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy (1990)'. He is at present working on a study that explores uncharted aspects of German society, especially the cultural manifestations of humor and satire in the Nazi era. His other current research project focuses on the application of complexity theory to a comparative study of societies and their internal dynamics. .