Adaptation Statement

“World History: Cultures, States, and Societies” has been revised and remixed for the LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education by Christopher R. Gilson, Ph.D., Emmitt Glynn, III, M.A. History, Vanessa Jacobs, M.A., and Lise Namikas, Ph.D., and editor Amelia Brister, MLIS. This work retains the original CC BY SA 4.0 license set forth by the original authors, unless otherwise noted in the text. 

This book is an adaptation of the University System of Georgia, GALILEO Open Learning Materials “World History: Cultures, States, and Societies” (which can be found at https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=history-textbooks) and was originally authored by Eugene Berger, Ph.D., George Israel, Ph.D., Charlotte Miller, Ph.D., Brian Parkinson, Ph.D., Andrew Reeves, Ph.D., Nadejda Williams, Ph.D., in Fall 2016. This text is licensed as CC BY SA 4.0. We would like to wholeheartedly thank Drs. Berger, Israel, Miller, Parkinson, Reeves, and Williams as well as the University System of Georgia for their tremendous work in this area of open educational resources.

The following changes were made to this book as a whole:

• Historical figures were replaced to better represent the diversity in student population.
• Images and maps were replaced with more appealing or higher quality graphics where applicable and Creative Commons Licenses.
• A selection of existing review questions were converted to self-marking H5P activities.
• Original H5P activities were inserted into sections to reinforce concepts.
• Textual edits to improve readability or shorten topics to appeal to Dual Enrollment students.
• Reduction of entries in timeline.
• Addition/removal of key terms.
• Moved paragraph about “decline and fall” theories to a footnote.
• Removed note from timeline.
• Word choice throughout chapter.
• Removed links to primary sources.

The following chapters and topics were significantly updated to reflect the following:

• Chapter 7: Spelling of Kyiv.
• Chapter 8 Islam: This chapter contains material primarily taken from https://courses.lumenlearning.com for background purposes on the topic of Arabia before Islam. The format of the Boundless World History hosted at Lumen Learning has changed, but most of the material used here can still be found at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-worldcivilization/chapter/the-nomadic-tribes-of-arabia/, and the “next” sections forward in the chapter on Islam. Extensive material was used on the background of Arabia, life of Muhammad, rise of Islam, and early spread of Islam. Light to medium editing was done throughout the text for readability and to develop a greater focus on the rise of Islam while reducing the lengthier portions on the spread of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties and beyond.
• Chapter 12: Added Medieval Warm Period key term to the text.

World History

Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

Eugene Berger, Ph.D. | George L. Israel, Ph.D. | Charlotte Miller, Ph.D.

Brian Parkinson, Ph.D. | Andrew Reeves, Ph.D. | Nadejda Williams, Ph.D.

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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ISBN: 978-1-940771-10-6

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