Welcome to World History Now, an online program for studying the story of our planet, its peoples and cultures.  

For Students 

Are you moving at light speed into the 21st century and wondering why your textbooks are still as heavy as furniture?  Wouldn't it make sense for a history book to be as easy to access onscreen as your music, your friends, and your world?  World History Now is a complete online program that gives you the freedom to explore and learn an essential subject in your own way, at your own speed – through interactive texts, primary documents, images, maps, video and music clips, and constantly updated links to the vast historical, geographical and cultural treasure-house that is the Internet.  See and experience how the world moved from prehistory to the present and get a preview of the future! 

For Parents and Teachers 

World History Now is aligned to California and other U.S. state history content standards for middle and high schools.  Students anticipating Advanced Placement study will benefit from the more advanced features in the text.  Students looking to engage history in a new way will be challenged and supported by a new integration of important facts, themes, and connections.  Through the online format, students can learn in familiar ways and can also step aside and pursue particular topics in a connected way.  Self-testing features help identify areas of knowledge and comprehension that need reinforcement. 

PROGRAM CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: History and Humanity

            How history reflects human nature and experience – and why we should study it.

UNIT I: Pre-History and the Ancient World

            How we began and what we owe to those who started it all.

UNIT 2: Consolidation and Expansion: The Classical World

            How we were shaped by the first efforts to understand and unite the world.

UNIT 3: Civilizations in Transition: The Medieval World

            How people turned inward and then began to learn more from each other.

UNIT 4: Civilizations in Revolution and Confrontation: Beginnings of the Early Modern World

            How interactions across cultures and continents reshaped human conceptions of the world.

UNIT 5: Consolidation and Expansion of the Modern World  

          How the West and the Rest became permanently entangled.

UNIT 6: The Modern World in Crisis: Birth Pangs of a New Global Civilization

            How old patterns and new are interacting to create a more integrated planetary civilization.

About the Author

W. Travis Hanes III has been involved in the development of two high school world history textbooks - as general editor and primary author of one, and as chief content and organization consultant for the other - both of which the Thomas Fordham Foundation selected in a recent review as the best two textbooks in the field.  His new online program goes beyond these books with updated and greatly improved content and presentation formats designed to address the widest possible range of student needs.  Dr. Hanes holds both a master’s and a doctorate in modern history from the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles. Currently teaching at several universities and colleges in Los Angeles, California, he has also taught in public and private high schools in California and Texas.