The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community is a book by University of Chicago historian William H. McNeill, first published in 1963 and enlarged with a retrospective preface in 1991.

McNeill proposes that the basic engine of world history during this period is the temporary primacy of different regions of the ecumene, with a rough parity reestablished as innovations spread to other centers of civilization.

The book describes the "tottering balance" of older orders within Europe, European expansion and acculturation in outliers, including the Americas.

The rise of the West on a cosmopolitan scale from 1750 to 1950 is described as to continued territorial expansion, industrialism, the democratic revolution, and intellectual aspects.

[9] Later, in a 1991 essay, McNeill emphasized that the unifying theme of his book was the importance of interrelation and cultural diffusion rather than a flat description of western history's effect on other civilizations.