A balance of Western and non-Western texts: Nearly half of the selections come from Eastern, Islamic, African, and South American sources. These texts highlight both the differences between Western and non-Western thinking and the similarities in the ways that all human cultures have formulated and approached essential problems.
A substantial yet flexible guide to reading and writing: At the end of Reading the World you can find Part 2, The Guide to Reading and Writing, which explores the writing process from reading critically to generating topic ideas to organization and support to evaluating and documenting sources. This substantial segment draws examples largely from the selections in the book.
Readings on language and rhetoric: One full chapter of the reader is devoted to primary sources on language and rhetoric. Here, students involved in the writing process can read accessible selections from writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Gloria Anzaldua, and Toni Morrison.
Images as texts: Great ideas are not always expressed in words; sometimes, they are conveyed through visual texts. Included throughout Reading the World, therefore, are the kinds of visual texts that contemporary students need to decode on a daily basis: drawings, paintings, photographs, monuments, and so on. Not merely illustrations or visual aids, these complex texts make substantial arguments in their own right, and they are presented here as texts, with headnotes, study questions, and writing suggestions.
Mix of longer and shorter readings: To meet a variety of teaching and assignment styles, the selections in Reading the World vary widely in length. Each chapter includes some pieces of only a page or two, which can be read quickly and incorporated into group discussions and in-class writing assignments. Each chapter also includes several medium-length selections, and one or two lengthy selections, which require in-depth reading and extensive discussion.
Cross-textual connections: The readings work together both within and across chapters. Following each reading, a set of questions titled "Making Connections" prompts students to explore these threads.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Reading the World: Ideas That Matter truly has many authors. It owes its existence to the great writers, artists, philosophers, and critics whose works fill its pages. Those pages, in turn, are the product of the attention, support, and creative energy of many people.
After the publication of the first edition, the writing programs at both Shepherd University and the Catholic University of America invited me to speak with instructors using the book. I thank these instructors and their students for the crucial feedback that they provided. My colleagues at Newman University have also been extremely supportive as I have prepared this new edition. I am especially grateful to President Noreen M. Carrocci for enduring a provost who was occasionally missing in action as deadlines for the new edition approached.
The staff at W. W. Norton provided more support than I ever imagined possible. This support began very early in the process, when John Kelly "discovered" the book during a meeting in my office on other textbook concerns. Marilyn Moller, who believed in the project from the beginning, was enormously helpful in giving the book its current shape and configuration—which is far superior to the shape and configuration that I originally had in mind. Ariella Foss, who edited the third edition, and Erin Granville, who edited the first two editions, were both outstanding in every regard. They held me to the same standards of clarity, concision, and logical consistency that I ask of all students who use Reading the World. Megan Jackson performed the task of clearing permissions for all the readings. Caitlin Moran did a superb job project editing the text; and Jillian Burr, Andy Ensor, Sophie Hagen, Rebecca Homiski, Ben Reynolds, and Claire Wallace were instrumental in managing the production and editing of this edition. I am also grateful to Carin Berger and Debra Morton Hoyt for the wonderful cover design.
Reading the World has also benefited tremendously from the teachers and scholars who took valuable time to review the second edition: Alex Blazer (Georgia College of State University), Robert Epstein (Fairfield University), Mark A. Graves (Morehead State University), David Holler (University of San Francisco), Mai Nguyen (Univerity of Tampa), Jonathan Rovner (American University of Iraq, Sulaimani), and Kelly A. Shea (Seton Hall University). And I also want to thank the teachers and scholars who reviewed the second edition, and read new selections for the third: Jenny Bangsund (University of Sioux Falls), Nancy Enright (Seton Hall University), Keely McCarthy (Chestnut Hill College), Anthony J. Sams (Ivy Tech Community College), and Thomas Wilmeth (Concordia University).
Finally, Reading the World is the result of personal debts that can never be adequately repaid. These include debts to my parents, Roger and Linda Austin, who taught me how to read and who always made sure that I lived in a house full of books and ideas; to my wife, Karen Austin, for her emotional and intellectual nurturing during the entire process of conceiving and executing this book—and for taking a lead role in writing the instructor's manual that accompanies it; and to my children, Porter and Clarissa Austin, who patiently endured more than a year of seeing their daddy always at the computer. My greatest hope is that they will someday understand why.
Timeline
Indus Valley civilization flourishes in present-day northeast India. Writing present
Mesopotamia. Cuneiform writing on clay tablets
Old Kingdom in Egypt (Great Pyramids, Sphinx)
Middle Kingdom in Egypt
Xia Dynasty flourishes in present-day China
Shang Dynasty in China. Ideograph writing on oracle bones
New Kingdom in Egypt
Moses leads Hebrews out of Egypt to Palestine Kingdom of Israel founded First recorded Olympics held in Greece Roman Kingdom founded
Emergence of kingdoms and republics in northern India Rise of first Persian state Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Roman Republic founded with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom
Period of Warring States in China. "Hundred Schools of
Thought" flourish
Pericles, The Funeral Oration
Mo Tzu, Against Music • Mo Tzu, Against Offensive Warfare Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Socrates, tried for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, sentenced to death by hemlock
ca. 3000-1500 bce
ca. 3000 bce ca. 2575-2130 bce ca. 2130-1540 bce ca. 2070-1600 bce 1600-1046 bce ca. 1539-1200 bce ca. 1200 bce 1030 bce 776 bce 753-510 bce 700 bce 648 bce 600-400 bce 510 bce
475-221 bce
431 bce 425 bce 400-320 bce 399 bce
380 bce
Plato, Gorgias
Many dates, especially ancient ones, are approximate. Boldface titles indicate works in the anthology.
xxii Timeline 350 BCE TO 800
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Alexander the Great conquers Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran Alexander the Great conquers Central Asia and Indus Valley, but dies in Babylon. His generals divide his empire and found the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt and Seleucid Empire in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran