This short book (the text is about 150 pages) is part of a series called ‘The new Oxford world history’, which covers the early modern period. It belongs to a growing literature that looks for alternative ways to write modern world history than those histories that viewed Europe and the West as the centre of the world. These new methodologies give weight to other, often neglected, parts of the world and integrate them in the major transformations that took place between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century. Much as in Eric Wolf’s People without history, or Andre Gunder Frank’s Re-Orient, the author has tried to integrate into his world history the peoples and civilizations that are often forgotten or left out of the historical narrative, whether natives of America or non-European civilizations, such as the Ottomans and Safavids and the civilizations of India, China, and Japan.

The book, as the author states in his introduction, spans the globe to find the various seeds that led to the modern world. Unlike some standard works, it begins with the Islamic empires – the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Moghuls. Two reasons are given for this choice: the first is that these empires maintained a link between peoples as far apart as Serbia and Senegal; the second is that these were shrinking empires, leaving the way for others, since by 1700 the Muslim world was on the defensive. The book then turns to some big changes and asks questions about how our world got into its present interconnected and troubled state. It argues for a growing connectedness in world history, especially from 1700, and traces a number of trends occurring in Europe, America, and Asia. Clearly the author, who has long been writing about Asian and Chinese trade, has a tremendous knowledge of regions outside Europe, which he brings into his narrative.

This is no easy task and many choices have to be made to write a study of this kind. In the first place, the author has chosen to write his book in a clear and simple style that is presumably aimed at undergraduate?students. Thus new generations of students may have their first exposure to world history in a book that integrates China and Japan with the events that happened in Europe and America. The sixteenth-century European discoveries are narrated both as Columbus’ discovery of America and as the story of the native people who had ‘no need to be discovered’ (Chapter 2), and Wills tells his readers of the numerous native populations of Cuba and the Bahamas, decimated by violence and disease. Likewise, what is usually termed the Renaissance, the author calls ‘Old ways made new: 1530–1570’ (Chapter 3). This approach allows him to trace changes in philosophical and religious trends not only in Europe at the time that Calvin and Luther appeared on the scene but also in Asia. In India, for instance, there were great philosophical works and unparalleled production of visual arts; in China, meanwhile, the same period experienced a kind of neo-Confucianism that led to a purge of Buddhist influences from Chinese societies.

In the second place, the author has chosen to use a narrative. Scholars may be disappointed by the fact that footnotes (endnotes in this case) are minimal, contained in two pages. Also disturbing to some will be the fact that the book does not engage secondary literature in the many debates that are current on the subjects covered. The reason is easy to guess: this book is meant to be easy reading, and John Wills has numerous publications available for those who wish to delve more deeply in the subject. Nevertheless, the reader may sometimes feel that narrative replaces argument.

Lastly comes the essential question of how successfully the book achieves what it sets out to achieve, namely a world history which does not use a Eurocentric approach. Clearly, the reader can see that certain important trends taking place in the early modern world were felt worldwide, albeit in different ways and with different manifestations, whether political, intellectual, or religious. The economy is less present. In spite of the book’s achievements, however, readers will still occasionally be asking themselves whether the broad chronology used does not remain in some ways reminiscent of the chronology of European history. Consequently, European periodization becomes the periodization of world history. Thus, Chapter 2, ‘Columbian exchanges’, covers the period of European discoveries; and Chapter 3, ‘Old ways made new’, the period of the Renaissance. But this is perhaps inevitable, and especially so in a field that is still feeling its way.