Featuring a beautiful new design, THE EARTH AND ITS PEOPLES, Sixth Edition, presents world history in a balanced, global framework, shifting the focus away from political centers of power. This truly global world history book employs a fundamental theme-the interaction of human beings and the environment-to compare different times, places, and societies. Special emphasis is given to technology (in its broadest sense) and how technological development underlies all human activity.

Richard W. Bulliet (PhD, Harvard University) is Professor of Middle Eastern History at Columbia University. He has written scholarly works on a number of topics: the social and economic history of medieval Iran (THE PATRICIANS OF NISHAPUR and COTTON, CLIMATE, AND CAMELS IN EARLY ISLAMIC IRAN), the history of human-animal relations (THE CAMEL AND THE WHEEL and HUNTERS, HERDERS, AND HAMBURGERS), the process of conversion to Islam (CONVERSION TO ISLAM IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD), and the overall course of Islamic social history (ISLAM: THE VIEW FROM THE EDGE and THE CASE FOR ISLAMO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION). He is the editor of the COLUMBIA HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. He has published four novels, coedited THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST, and hosted an educational television series on the Middle East. He was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and was named a Carnegie Corporation Scholar.