The primary source material has been significantly expanded. Selections from Beowulf, Alice Walker, Seamus Heaney, Mary Shelley, and Ralph Waldo Emerson are among those newly included. Predominantly Western in focus, the new edition nonetheless offers expanded coverage of the world's cultures. Each book weaves this coverage through the text. A new series of boxed features addresses the impact of Science and Technology on culture throughout the text.
Locator maps are new to the third edition.
These thumbnail world maps serve to orient students on the region being discussed in a given segment of the text. A selection from Swift's A Modest Proposal, therefore, is introduced by a world map highlighting Europe to show the author's region of origin. Expanded coverage of the 20th Century that includes material on Freud, feminism, social conscience film, chaos theory, the Stonewall Riots, and cyberart. Floorplans are provided for many of the major architectural illustrations. Book 1 has been updated to include new information on prehistory, for example, the discovery of the Chauvet caves.