Modern World History Textbook

A free, self-paced textbook in 7 chapters. Read a chapter, then drill it with the 206 companion flashcards using spaced repetition.

Chapters

1. 1From Renaissance to Reformation

   The dawn of the modern era in Europe was marked by a wave of exploration, artistic flourishing, and religious upheaval. In 1492, Christopher Columbus, funded by the Spanish Crown o...

2. 2Revolutions of the Long Eighteenth Century

   The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a chain of revolutions that redefined politics, economics, and society. In England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 overthre...

3. 3The Nineteenth Century: Nationalism, Empire, and Civil War

   The nineteenth century was a story of nation-building, industrial might, and imperial ambition. In the United States, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny drove westward expansion, but...

4. 4World Wars and the Interwar Crisis

   The early twentieth century shattered the long peace of the European concert. World War I began on June 28, 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Th...

5. 5The Cold War and the Global South

   Almost as soon as the Second World War ended, a new rivalry took its place. The Cold War, lasting roughly from 1947 to 1991, pitted the United States and its allies against the Sov...

6. 6The End of the Cold War and the New World Order

   By the mid-1980s, the Soviet system was faltering. Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to lead the USSR, introduced two landmark reforms: perestroika, an economic restructuring, and glasno...

7. 7The Twenty-First Century

   The new century opened with trauma. On September 11, 2001, the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States killed nearly three thousand people and prompted a U.S.-led invasion...

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