Ideas in the Making

Ideas in the Making: A Sourcebook for World Intellectual History to 1300 uses primary source material to illustrate the most important features of the world's intellectual history. The selected readings explore questions of ethics, morality, justice, community, political philosophy, and the understanding of self and humanity. Examining the way the ancients approached these issues gives students a sense of how thoughts trigger events, and teaches them that there have been, and continue to be, many different ways to look at an issue.

The book begins in the Early Bronze Age, when literature first appeared, and ends with the Postclassical Period, the time when a new international framework produced a synthesis of ideas. Students will become exposed not only to works by writers of traditional repute, such as Homer, Plato, Virgil, Confucius, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha, but a host of other seminal thinkers, who deserve no less attention.

Several features serve to place primary sources in context and to enhance comprehension and retention. Each reading begins with an introduction that identifies where, when, and by whom the source material was composed to the best of our knowledge. Questions that historians might pose about the source demonstrate methodology. Analysis questions at the end of the chapters encourage critical thinking, and can be used in class or for homework.

Ideas in the Making is designed as a companion reader to any standard world history textbook used in introductory courses.