This engaging textbook provides a human perspective of the history of France from 1789 to the present through essays that highlight individuals and intriguing events that too often have been lost under labels and statistics. Students will gain an understanding of the humor and passion in French history from these original chpaters by established scholars. This collection also relates the individuals, events, and controversies to current historiographical debates. The Human Tradition in Modern France is an excellent supplementary text for courses on French history, as well as on Western...

By integrating the human dimension into Russian history, this lively textbook introduces Russian social history since 1861 to readers in provocative and interesting new ways. The essays in this unique collection are based largely on previously classified Russian archival information available only since 1991. Bringing in the perspectives of individuals and groups usually overlooked, the authors give the reader a grassroots view of modern Russia. The Human Tradition in Modern Russia is an ideal for courses on Russian history and civilization and modern European history.

The Human Tradition in Modern Japan is a collection of short biographies of ordinary Japanese men and women, most of them unknown outside their family and locality, whose lives collectively span the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. Their stories present a counter-weight to the prevailing stereotypes, providing readers with depictions of real people through the records they have left - records that detail experiences and aspirations. The Human Tradition in Modern Japan offers a human-scale perspective that focuses on individuals, reconstitutes the meaning of people's experiences as...

The Human Tradition in Premodern China is a collection of biographical essays revealing the variety and complexity of human experience in China from the earliest historical times to the dawn of the modern age. China is a vast country with a long history, and one which is by itself as complex as the history of Europe. This broad expanse of time and space in Chinese history has largely been approached in terms of narrative political and cultural history in most books. The reigns of emperors and the thoughts of the great masters such as Confucius or Laozi have been the principal focus. Yet the...