John P. McKay

Understanding World Societies, Second Edition, features a brief, question-driven narrative that models for students the inquiry-based methods used by historians and helps students understand what's really important to know about world history. The second edition presents LaunchPad, a new intuitive ebook and course space with LearningCurve adaptive quizzing and a wealth of activities and assessments that help students make progress toward learning outcomes. LaunchPad features primary source activities, map and visual activities, adaptive and summative quizzing, and a wealth of optional resources, including carefully developed Online Document Projects for each chapter with auto-graded exercises. LaunchPad is easy to use and can be integrated with your school's course management system, giving you the tools for enhanced teaching and learning.

"If we wish to know the innermost thought and passion of the French peasant, it is very easy. Walk, any Sunday, into the country and follow him." So begins this extraordinary book by the man often called France's greatest historian. After its publication in 1846, Le peuple sold 1,000 copies in a single day in Paris alone, and was soon considered the classic study of French society in the early nineteenth century. John P. McKay's translation makes the book newly available to English-language readers. The People is a moving picture of France on the eve of 1848. Michelet saw tensions, divisions, and hatreds tearing France apart, and he sought to provide a new faith that would unite the conflicting groups in the love of country. This book, Michelet wrote, "is the product of my experience rather than of my studies. I have derived it from my observation and my conversations with friends and neighbors." Because of Michelet's countless discussions with people from all ranks of society and his precise observations, his portrait of France is unsurpassed, and representative of general European problems in a time of rapid social and economic change.