For 24 years, the college textbook “The Twentieth Century: A Brief Global History” has been a staple in universities from the United States to the Mediterranean island of Cypress.

It also happens to be written by four Eastern Michigan University history professors. The rare, longtime collaborative team includes Walter Moss, a current professor of history and philosophy, and Richard Goff, Janice Terry and Jiu-Hwa Upshur, all now retired.

Despite retirement, they remain a team, producing the textbook’s seventh ediction, now titled “The Twentieth Century and Beyond: A Global History,” published by McGraw-Hall. They are joined by a current faculty member, Professor Michael Schroeder, ensuring future revisions of the textbook, first published in 1983.

“We wrote this text because we believed no good 20th century global history text existed, and we had begun teaching a 20th century global history course several years earlier and needed a good book for it,” Dr. Moss said.

According to the group, Dr. Goff was the catalyst behind the textbook’s creation.
“I approached several of my colleagues with the proposition that we create a multi-author text. What we could promise the publisher was a group of experts who lived and worked in close proximity to each other,” Dr. Goff recalled. “I was particularly interested in selecting colleagues who I knew would meet the deadlines that were necessary for publication of a textbook.”

Once the team was assembled and a publisher, John Wiley & Sons, secured, Dr. Goff went about divvying duties. He took the reins for editing the textbook, something he did for the first few editions before handing those duties to Dr. Moss.

Subject areas were assigned based on expertise, Dr. Terry said. Her area of specialty was the Middle East, but she also wrote the Africa material as well as sections on The Great Depression and Imperialism. Dr. Moss was the expert on Russia and intellectual history. He also wrote much of the material about Europe. Dr. Goff penned sections about the United States and Latin America (Dr. Schroeder has edited the material in these sections in the latest edition). Dr. Upshur specialized in Asia, particularly China, and contributed material about India and Australia.

“Each of us had our own areas of specialty, but we worked very hard to have the text read seamlessly, and I believe it does,” Dr. Terry said.

The latest 624-page version is used at more than 200 universities, including Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan Sate University, the University of Texas, and one or more of the campuses of the University of California, Indiana University, The Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina, and the State University of New York. A Chinese translation of the textbook is taking place in China.

The textbook’s four sections are: The Era of Imperialism; The Era of Revolution and War; The Era of the Cold War and the Collapse of the Empires; and The Post-Cold War Period.

A posting at the book-selling Web site www.amazon.com provides a typical student reaction: “It presents the subject matter well and is well written. I don’t really like history all that much and this book had me reading it.”
Dr. Upshur thinks she knows why the textbook has received kudos from students. “It’s short enough not to overwhelm, but not too short to be sketchy,” she said. “Generally speaking, we’ve been very pleased with the approach. It lacks bias and does not hammer on ideology.”

Dr. Terry agreed.

“The early chapters of the book have been rearranged several times and, in the interest of keeping the book relatively short, some material has had to be dropped,” Dr. Terry said. “As so many universities have adopted and continue to use the text, it clearly meets demands and is fairly readable and solid in content.”

Through it all, the four professors have been able to work together without incident. “The relationship between us, which has sustained seven editions, has been one of respect and trust,” Dr. Goff said. “We have had no academic disputes that are common in the academic world.”

“Yes, it is unusual for a text to go on for so long. Ours was one of the first, if not the first text on the 20th century, so we broke new ground,” Dr. Terry said.
Dr. Moss said it was common for authors with different areas of expertise to collaborate on global history texts, but did say having four co-authors is less common than two or three.

Dr. Upshur concurred.

“As colleagues, we see each other quite regularly. Obviously, if there were dramatic conflicts in our approach, we wouldn’t have lasted,” she said. “We all had deadlines to meet. If one person lagged and couldn’t produce, this would get us all in trouble.”

“I think it’s remarkable to have a group of people like that at one institution who worked on a textbook that is used all over the country,” said Dr. Linda Schott, interim head of the Department of History and Philosophy, and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Usually, when a book like that is created, there are faculty from various universities who create it.”

Dr. Schroeder, the new historian on the veterans’ textbook block, is completely rewriting all chapters dealing with the Americas. He recently published his first book, “The New Immigrants: Mexican Americans.”

So, how long will this collaboration continue?

“Depends on sales,” Dr. Upshur said with a laugh. “Like all publishing houses, McGraw-Hill’s interest is driven by sales and profit. I see my retirement as an opportunity, among other things, to do some more writing.”

No doubt with her three longtime colleagues.

DEPARTMENT AT A GLANCE

The Department of History and Philosophy offers honors courses, programs in public law and government, public administration, area studies, language and international trade, African American studies, technology and society, and women’s studies. It offers 10 majors and 10 minors. Graduate programs include a master of arts in history, social science and liberal studies (with a concentration in social science and American culture).

The department has 29 faculty and 19 lecturers; 623 undergraduate majors; 417 undergraduate minors; and 64 graduate students. Another 172 history majors are pursuing secondary-teaching certification.

Thirty members of EMU’s Honors College are majoring in history (25) or philosophy (five). The College offers on average about nine history and philosophy courses a year.

Team effort: Authors on the popular textbook, first published in 1983, are (from left): Janice Terry, Michael Schroeder, Walter Moss and Jiu-Hwa Upshur. Not pictured is colleague Richard Goff. All but professors Schroeder and Moss are retired.