Updated September 2016: William H. McNeill was one of the most important and famous historians of the twentieth century, known for groundbreaking and award-winning books that changed how historians and other scholars see the world. He is called the “grandfather” of the entire field of world history because in his early books he placed a great emphasis on thinking about the past not as a national narrative but as a human history – a history of all human meanings. whm-reading“What unites us is more important than what divides us,” he used to say. In this video, he explains how it is that he came to see the past in this new, more global way. Berkshire Publishing, creators of ChinaConnectU, is proud to have a long and close relationship with Professor McNeill. He contributed the article “China in World History” to the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, and Berkshire sponsored a lecture in his honor in Beijing in 2011. Many of his books have been translated into Chinese. He died at the age of 98, on 8 July 2016. Here is a letter Berkshire Publishing CEO Karen Christensen wrote about her friendship with Professor McNeill, “Celebrating William H. McNeill (1917-2016).”