“This is a rich and engagingly written account of the post-classical world that highlights the importance of human agency. Drawing on the best world history scholarship, the Johnsons are especially illuminating on the universal religions and cross-cultural contacts. Their humanistic vision of the distant past will help students think more reflectively about the confusing present.”
–Professor Stephen S. Gosch, University of Wisconsin
“The Human Drama welcomes students into a study of history that is engaging, challenging, and relevant. Unusual in textbooks, its voice is warm, inviting, and friendly. The Johnsons’ scholarship is rigorous, and they adopt a perspective that is both global and personal. As the title suggests, the text draws students into the production as they learn to function as historians themselves, examining and interpreting the past. At last an excellent textbook that actually enlivens the high school study of history.”
– Michele Forman, History Teacher, Middlebury Union High School, Middlebury, VT, 2001 National Teacher of the Year
“The Johnsons have created a compelling narrative which engages students in a discussion of major themes in world history. The incorporate recent scholarship in the field of world history to describe the interactions among people vital to an understanding of important developments and change over time. Woven into the narrative are discussions of primary sources and the ideas of world historians which introduce high school students to the interpretative nature of history as well as develop the ideas and events that shape the world in which we live.”
– Karen Jernigan, World History Teacher, Friends Seminary, New York City
“The first two volumes of The Human Drama were a hit with my students. The Johnsons provide a thoroughly engaging, readable text, which anticipates key questions and spurs meaningful class discussion. Far from being a soporific outline-style text, The Human Drama is an exciting narrative with understandable charts, graphs, maps, and drawings. This book is the union of serious scholarship with riveting pedagogic devices that foster genuine interest and lively debate.”
– Bob Swacker, Dean of Faculty and World History Teacher, Saint Ann’s School, Brooklyn
“The Johnsons’ final volumes of The Human Drama provide a clear, conceptual, thematic, and big picture frame to aid both teachers and students in their understanding of world history… At the same time, they retain their focus on the ‘drama’ of history by highlighting the human interactions and characters that make history come alive. The text is welcoming and reader-friendly and, at the same time, uses historiography and primary sources to help students think like historians.”
– Jennifer Laden, Supervisor of Secondary School Social Studies, Harrison Central School District, Harrison, NY