William H McNeill, prize-winning world historian, dead at 98

NEW YORK (AP) — William H. McNeill, the prize-winning scholar who wove the stories of civilizations worldwide into the landmark "The Rise of the West" and helped pioneer the history of disease and epidemics in "Plagues and People," has died at age 98.

McNeill died Friday at his home in Torrington, Connecticut, according to Steve Koppes, associate news director at the University of Chicago, where McNeill was a professor emeritus.

[...] The Rise of the West," its narrative extending from the Paleolithic Age to the present, was also born out of a Freudian struggle with McNeill's hero and father figure Arnold Toynbee, then the reigning scholar of world history.

McNeill countered that they were very much part of one story, one of contacts and exchanges and the triumph of Western innovation over the stagnation of Muslim and Chinese culture.

"[...] world history since 1500 may be thought of as a race between the West's growing power to molest the rest of the world and the increasingly desperate efforts of other peoples to stave Westerners off," wrote McNeill, who also cautioned that another civilization could yet overtake the West.

In the 1976 release "Plagues and People," he was among the first to examine the impact of infectious disease in history, from ancient Eurasia to the 20th century.

McNeill especially valued his assignment to gather intelligence on the Communist uprising in Greece.