A World View: Collected Essays
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During the last decade of his life, the world historian William H. McNeill (1917-2016) wrote a series of essays and short accounts of his experiences with other prominent 20th-century figures: Mortimer Adler, Henry Moore, and Carl Sagan, who asked McNeill to join a project looking for extraterrestrial intelligence. In all these pieces, McNeill tested ideas and made new connections, drawing on many years of reflection on human affairs. Published here, together with his last speech, "Leaving Western Civ Behind," and a lengthy cover essay from Foreign Affairs, these explorations will give pleasure to readers who already know The Rise of the West, A World History, and Plagues and Peoples. And they will introduce to new readers to a writer who remained curious, perceptive, and innovative to the end of his life, which lasted nearly a century. McNeill was also editor in chief of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, which in 2024, eight years after his death, was published in Chinese by Sanlian Press, taking his work to a new audience of many millions.
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William H. (Bill) McNeill (1917-2016) was a Canadian American world historian and professor at the University of Chicago. His many books include Plagues and Peoples, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, Mythistory and Other Essays, The Pursuit of Powe, Moving Together in Time, The Pursuit of Truth, and The Human Web. He was editor in chief of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, which was published in China in 2024. He was a recipient of the National Book Award for The Rise of the West, and was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Erasmus Prize.
