William H. McNeill, "a professor and prolific author whose catholic exploration of world history widened the traditional Eurocentric approach to the subject," died July 8, the New York Times reported. He was 98. McNeill's bestselling The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963) took 10 years to write and won the National Book Award for history and biography. In the New York Times Book Review, historian Hugh Trevor-Roper praised the work as "not only the most learned and the most intelligent, it is also the most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind."
McNeill's books include The Pursuit of Truth: A Historian’s Memoir; Plagues and Peoples; The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000; and The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History (co-written with his brother, John Robert McNeill).