related to that event. The next set of chapters is composed of topical essays,
each analyzing closely an issue or problem of interpretation introduced in the
opening chapter. A concluding chapter suggesting the long-term implications
and meanings of the historic event brings the strands of the preceding chapters
together while placing the event in the larger historical context. Each book
also includes a section of short biographies of the principal persons related to
the event, followed by a section introducing and reprinting key historical
documents illustrative of and pertinent to the event. A glossary of selected
terms adds to the utility of each book. An annotated bibliography -- of signifi-
cant books, films, and CD-ROMs -- and an index conclude each volume.

The editors made no attempt to impose any theoretical model or historical
perspective on the individual authors. Rather, in developing the series, an
advisory board of noted historians and informed high school history teach-
ers and public and school librarians identified the topics needful of explo-
ration and the scholars eminently qualified to examine those events with
intelligence and sensitivity. The common commitment throughout the series
is to provide accurate, informative, and readable books, free of jargon and
up to date in evidence and analysis.

Each book stands as a complete historical analysis and reference guide
to a particular historic event. Each book also has many uses, from under-
standing contemporary perspectives on critical historical issues, to provid-
ing biographical treatments of key figures related to each event, to offering
excerpts and complete texts of essential documents about the event, to
suggesting and describing books and media materials for further study and
presentation of the event, and more. The combination of historical narrative
and individual topical chapters addressing significant issues and problems
encourages students and teachers to approach each historic event from
multiple perspectives and with a critical eye. The arrangement and content
of each book thus invite students and teachers, through classroom discus-
sions and position papers, to debate the character and significance of great
historic events and to discover for themselves how and why history matters.

The series emphasizes the main currents that have shaped the modern
world. Much of that focus necessarily looks at the West, especially Europe
and the United States. The political, commercial, and cultural expansion of
the West wrought largely, though not wholly, the most fundamental changes
of the century. Taken together, however, books in the series reveal the
interactions between Western and non-Western peoples and society, and also
the tensions between modern and traditional cultures. They also point to the
ways in which non-Western peoples have adapted Western ideas and technol-
ogy and, in turn, influenced Western life and thought. Several books examine

-x-