ABSTRACT
First and foremost, the world history course should deal with world history. This observation may seem perversely trite. Actually, it is wildly Utopian. The fact is that the great majority of the so-called world history courses now taught are Western civilization courses, with or without an Afro-Asian fig leaf. And naturally so, since virtually all introductory history courses on university campuses also are concerned essentially with Western civilization, regardless of the titles they may bear. At both levels the basic organization, aside from afterthought additions, is traditional and familiar: the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, northwestern Europe, and the United States. The result is “world history” courses that ignore the histories of about three-quarters of the people of the world.
