World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500
As a world history textbook, this book is ludicrously Eurocentric and frankly unacceptable. Chapter 2, 5, 6, 7 and 12 are devoted to Mediterranean/European civilization while China, India and the Islamic world get one chapter apiece. (The western chapters are also longer on the average.) The Persian Empire, Achmaenid, Parthian and Sassanian seems to have completely fallen into the cracks as the Achmaenid Empire appears only as an adversary for the Greeks, which means Zoroastrianism doesn't get attention either. (Phoenecians not around much either.) This is simply not in line with how world history is taught these days, although it may suit the "West and the World" model of western civilization teaching.
I saw no major errors. There are some exaggerations—"all Greeks" did not cooperate against the Persian empire. (p. 172), but you correct that later.
The work's pronounced Eurocentrism makes it instantly irrelevant, and it will only grow more so with the passage of time.
The book is well-written, not pitched as a level above that of college students. I like the way that it acknowledges scholarly controversy and the weaknesses of evidence for some periods, such as early Israel. (Unfortunately, this is not the case for the discussion of the origins of Islam, the subject of much recent scholarly controversy.)
Western civilization is covered in much more detail with much sharper periodization and a much greater emphasis on events than other civilizations.
The book is modular, but this is not always an advantage. A good world history textbook needs to make comparisons between cultures and discuss links between them. Poor awareness of the importance of cultural encounters is a weakness of the text—the Greek encounter with Judaism in the Hellenistic period, absolutely central to the development of Christianity and the Western tradition, occupies only a short paragraph on the Maccabean wars.
The book flows nicely, with strong organization. One problem that it deals with multiple civilizations encounter with Islam before introducing Islam itself.
No problems.
Did not see any grammatical errors.
The book's consistent philosophy that western developments are more important may be considered culturally offensive by some. In terms of specifically offensive statements I didn’t see any, but as a middle-aged white guy I'm not the most qualified to judge. (Kind of odd that on page 334 the text tells students not to use the terms "bushmen" and "pygmies" but doesn't tell them what terms to use instead.) Sometimes the text goes over the top in correcting for the students (assumed) prejudices, as in the statement on page 370 that "our task is to admire" Pre-Columbian history. It isn't—our task is to understand.
I would never consider this book for a world history course due to its extreme, old-fashioned Eurocentrism. Liked the use of Wikimedia Commons, though.