Human history
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- This article is about the human history of the world. For other uses, see History of the World (disambiguation)
The history of the world, in popular parlance, is human history, from the first appearance of Homo sapiens to the present.
Hunter-gatherers
Scientific evidence based on genetics and the study of fossils, places the origin of modern Homo sapiens in Africa [1]. This occurred about 200,000 years ago during the Palaeolithic period, after a long period of evolution. Ancestors of humans, such as Homo erectus, had been using simple tools for many millennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more refined and complex. Humans also developed language sometime during the Paleolithic period, as well as a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead, which strongly suggests that the belief in an afterlife originated far before organized religion.
Humans of this age also decorated themselves with objects to improve their appearance. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, who were generally nomadic.
Modern humans spread rapidly over the globe from Africa and the frost-free zones of Europe and Asia. The rapid expansion of humankind to North America and Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent Ice Age, when today's temperate regions were extremely inhospitable. Yet, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonised nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe.
Hunter-gatherer societies have tended to be very small, although in some cases they have developed social stratification, and long-distance contacts are possible as in the case of the Indigenous Australian 'highways' in Australia.
Eventually most hunter-gatherer societies either developed, or were absorbed into, larger agricultural states, were exterminated, or remained in isolation, such as small hunter-gatherer societies which are still present today in remote regions.
Agriculture
A major change, described by the prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe as a "revolution," occurred around the 9th millennium BC with the adoption of agriculture. Although research has tended to concentrate on the Fertile Crescent area of the Middle East, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia and Southeast Asia indicates that agricultural systems using different crops and animals may well have developed nearly as early in some cases.
If the operative definition of agriculture includes large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organised irrigation, and use of a specialized labour force, the title "inventors of agriculture" would fall to the Sumerians, starting ca. 5,500 BC. Bronze and iron replaced stone as tools for agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until this time been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and bronze tools, decorations, and weapons began to become commonplace around 3000 BC. After bronze, the Eastern Mediterranean region, Middle East and China saw the introduction of iron tools and weapons. The Americas may not have had metal tools until the Chavin horizon in 900 BC. We also know that the Moche had metal armor, knives and tableware. Even the metal-poor Inca had metal-tipped plows, at least after the conquest of Chimor. However, very little archaeological research has been done in Peru so far and almost all the khipus (recording devices, in the form of knots, used by the Incas) were burned in the Spanish conquest of Peru. Whole cities were still being discovered in 2004. Some digs suggest that steel may have been discovered there before western civilization.
River valleys became the cradles of early civilizations, such as the Yellow River valley in China, the Nile in Egypt, and the Indus Valley in India. Some peoples, such as Indigenous Australians and the Bushmen of southern Africa, did not use agriculture until relatively modern times.
Many humans did not belong to states before 1900. Among scientists, there is disagreement over whether the term "tribe" should be used to describe the kind of societies these humans lived in. Large parts of the world were the territories of "tribes" before Europeans began colonizing these territories. Many "tribes" transformed into states when they were threatened or otherwise influenced by states. Examples are the Marcomanni and Lithuania. Some "tribes," such as the Kassites and the Manchus, conquered states and were absorbed by them.
Agriculture made possible complex societies, also called civilizations. States and markets emerged. Technologies improved humans' ability to control nature and to develop transport and communication.
State
Agriculture led to several major changes. It allowed far larger population densities, which organized themselves into states. There are several definitions used for the term "state." Max Weber and Norbert Elias defined the state as an organization of people that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a particular geographic area.
The first states appeared in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Ancient Egypt began as a state without cities. In Mesopotamia there were several city-states. A state needs an army to impose the legitimate use of force. An army needs a bureaucracy to maintain it.
States appeared in China and in the Indus Valley in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Major wars broke out between states in the Middle East. The treaty of Kadesh, one of the first peace treaties, was concluded between the Hittites and ancient Egypt ca.1275 BC. Major empires came into being which conquered areas ruled by tribes, such as Persia (6th century BC), Chin China (3rd century BC), the Roman Empire (1st century BC).
Clashes among major empires took place in the 8th century, when Arabia (ruling from Spain to Iran) and Tang China (ruling from Korea) fought for decades for control of Central Asia. The largest continguous land empire was the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century. By then, most humans in Europe, Asia and North Africa belonged to states. There were states as well in Mexico and western South America. The last 'empty' territories were divided among states in the Treaty of Berlin (1878).
City and trade
Agriculture also created, and allowed for the storage of, food surpluses that could support people not directly involved in food production. The development of agriculture permitted the creation of the first cities. These were state centers with nearly no agricultural production of their own. The cities were parasites of a sort, absorbing agricultural products from the surrounding countryside.
The development of cities led to what has been called civilization: first Sumerian in lower Mesopotamia (3500 BC), then Egyptian along the Nile (3000 BC) and Harappan in the Indus Valley (2500 BC). There is evidence of elaborate cities with high levels of social and economic complexity. However, these civilizations were so different from each other that they almost certainly originated independently. It was at this time that writing and extensive trade were introduced.
The 2nd millenium BC saw the emergence of complex state societies in Crete, mainland Greece and central Turkey. In China, proto-urban societies may have developed by 2500 BC, but the first dynasty to be identified by archeology is that of the Shang. In the Americas, civilizations such as the Maya, the Moche and Nazca emerged in Mesoamerica and Peru at the end of the 1st millenium BC. Coinage was introduced in Lydia.
Long-range trade routes first appeared in the 3rd millennium BC. Sumerians from Mesopotamia traded with the Harappa culture of the Indus Valley. Trade routes also appeared in the eastern Mediterranean in the 4th millennium BC. The Silk Road between China and Syria began in the 2nd millennium BC. Cities in Central Asia and Persia were major crossroads of these trade routes. Phoenician and Greek civilizations founded empires in the Mediterranean basin in the 1st century BC, based on trade. Arabs dominated the trade routes in the Indian Ocean, East Asia and the Sahara in the late 1st millennium and early second millennium. Arabs and Jews also dominated trade in the Mediterranean in the late 1st millennium. Italians took over this role in the early 2nd millennium. Flemish and German cities were at the center of trade routes in Northern Europe in the early 2nd millennium.
Religion and Ideology
New philosophies and religions arose in both east and west, particularly around the 6th century BC. Over time a great variety of religions developed around the world, with Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Zoroastrianism in Persia being some of the earliest major faiths. In the east, three schools of thoughts were to dominate Chinese thinking until the modern day. These were Taoism, Legalism and Confucianism. The Confucian tradition, which would attain predominance, looked not to the force of law, but to the power and example of tradition for political morality. In the west, the Greek philosophical tradition, represented by the works of Plato and Aristotle, was diffused throughout Europe and the Middle East by the conquests of Alexander of Macedon in the 4th century BC.
Major Civilizations and Regions
By the last centuries BC the Mediterranean, the Ganges and the Yellow River became the seats of empires which future rulers would strive to imitate. In China the Qin and Han dynasties extended the rule of imperial government through political unity, improved communications and also notably the establishment of state monopolies by Emperor Wu. In India, the influence of the Mauryas spread over much of the north subcontinent and Pandyas at the south of the subcontinent. In the west, the Romans began expanding their territory through conquest and colonisation from the beginning of the 5th century BC. By the reign of Augustus around the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, Rome controlled all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean.
The great empires rested on the ability to exploit the process of military annexation and the formation of settlements to become agricultural centres. The relative peace they brought encouraged international trade and notably the growth of the Silk Road. They also faced common problems such as those associated with maintaining huge armies and the support of the bureaucracy. These costs fell most heavily on the peasantry, whilst land-owning magnates were increasingly able to evade centralised control. The pressure of barbarians on the frontiers hastened the process of internal dissolution. The Han empire fell into civil war in 220 whilst its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralised and divided around the same time.
Throughout the temperate zones of Eurasia, America, and North Africa, large empires continued to rise and fall.
The gradual breakup of the Roman Empire, which spanned several centuries following the 2nd century AD, coincided with the spread of Christianity westward from the Middle East. The western part of the Roman Empire fell under the domination of various Germanic tribes in the 5th century, and these polities gradually developed into a number of warring states, all under the Roman Catholic Church. The remaining part of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean was henceforth known as the Byzantine Empire. Centuries later a limited unity was restored to western Europe through the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, comprising a number of states in what is now Germany and Italy.
In China, dynasties would similarly rise and fall. Nomads from the north began to invade in the 4th century, eventually conquering nearly all of northern China and setting up many small kingdoms. The Sui Dynasty reunified China in 581, and under the Tang Dynasty (618-907) China entered into a second golden age. However, the Tang Dynasty also splintered, and after about half a century of turmoil, the Northern Song Dynasty reunified China in 982. However, pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent. All of North China was lost to the Jurchen in 1141, and the Mongol Empire conquered all of China in 1279, as well as almost all of Eurasia's landmass, missing only western and central Europe and Japan.
Northern India was ruled by the Guptas in these times. In southern India, three prominent Tamil kingdoms emerged, Cheras, Cholas, and Pallavas. The ensuing stability contributed to herald the golden age of Hindu culture in the 4th and 5th centuries AD.
Vast societies also began to be built up in Central America at this time, with the Maya and the Aztecs in Mesoamerica being the most notable. As the mother culture of the Olmecs gradually declined, the great Mayan city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout Yucatán and surrounding areas. The later empire of the Aztec was built on neighboring cultures and was influenced by conquered peoples, such as the Toltec.
South America saw the rise of the Inca in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Inca Empire of Tawantinsuyu spanned the entire range of the Andes and held its capital at Cusco. The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and unrivaled masonry.
Islam, which began in Arabia in the 7th century, was also one of the most remarkable forces, growing from only a few followers to become the basis of a series of large empires in India, the Middle East, and North Africa.
In North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia, which both had long been linked to the Mediterranean world, remained Christian enclaves as the rest of Africa north of the equator converted to Islam. With Islam came new technologies that for the first time allowed substantial trade to cross the Sahara. Taxes on this trade led to prosperity in North Africa and the rise of a series of kingdoms in the Sahel.
This period was marked by slow but steady technological improvements, with developments of influential importance such as the stirrup and the mouldboard plough arriving every few centuries.
Rise of Europe
The second half of the second millennium was dominated by the expansion of European power around the world. Why Europe, which had been a peripheral area during its Middle Ages, came to dominate the planet is one of the most important questions of world history.
Other parts of the world had become more advanced than Europe. China had developed an advanced monetary economy by 1000 AD. China had a free peasantry who were no longer subsistence farmers, and could sell their produce and actively participate in the market. The agriculture was highly productive. China was the most urbanized region in Eurasia. It enjoyed a technological advantage over the rest of the Eurasian world and had a monopoly in cast-iron production, piston bellows, suspension-bridge construction, printing and the compass. (see Joseph Needham). Just to the east of Europe, the Islamic civilizations of the Middle East are often considered to have been the world's most advanced, making important discoveries in mathematics, geography and philosophy. Northern India was also highly prosperous.
There are a number of explanations why Europe rose to surpass these other civilizations, dominate the rest of the world and become the home of the Industrial Revolution. Max Weber argued it was due to a Protestant work ethic that encouraged Europeans to work harder and longer than their fellows. Another sociological explanation looks at demographics; Europe with its celibate clergy and late age of marriage had far more restrained population growth, and surpluses could be invested in luxuries rather than in a simple expansion of the population. Many have also argued that Europe's institutions were superior, that property rights and free market economics were stronger in Europe than elsewhere in the world. In recent years, scholars such as Kenneth Pomeranz have challenged this view.
Europe's geography may also have played an important role. The Middle East, India and China are all ringed by mountains, but once past these outer barriers all are relatively flat. By contrast the Alps, Pyrenees, and other mountain ranges run through Europe, and the continent is also divided by several seas. This gave Europe some degree of protection from the peril of Central Asian invaders. In the era before firearms, all of Eurasia was threatened by the horsemen of the Central Asian steppe. They were militarily superior to the agricultural states on the periphery of the continent and, if they broke out into the plains of Northern India or the valleys of China, were all but unstoppable. These invasions were often devastating. The Golden Age of Islam was ended by the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, and both India and China were also subject to periodic invasions. Europe, especially western Europe, was far less subject to these threats.
The geography also contributed to important geopolitical differences. For most of their histories China, India and the Middle East were unified under a single dominant power that expanded until it reached the surrounding mountains and deserts. In 1600 the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the Middle East, the Ming Dynasty dominated China, and the Mughal Empire had control over India. By contrast, Europe was almost always divided among a number of warring states. Pan-European empires, with the major exception of the earlier Roman Empire, tended to collapse as soon as they arose. The intense competition between rival states is often portrayed as one source of Europe's success. In other regions, stability was often a higher priority than growth. For instance, China's growth as a maritime power was restricted by the Hai jin of the Ming Dynasty. In Europe, such a blanket ban would have been impossible due to disunity; if any one state had imposed such a restriction, it would have quickly fallen behind its competitors.
Another doubtless important geographic factor in the rise of Europe was the Mediterranean Sea, which for millenia had functioned as a maritime superhighway fostering the exchange of goods, people, ideas and inventions.
Mercantile dominance of Europe
In the fourteenth century the Renaissance began in Europe. Some modern scholars have questioned whether this flowering of art and humanism was a benefit to science, but the era did see an important fusion of Arab and European knowledge. One of the most important developments was the caravel, which combined the Arab lateen sail with European square rigging to create the first vessels that could safely sail the Atlantic Ocean. Along with important developments in navigation, this technology allowed Christopher Columbus in 1492 to penetrate across the Atlantic Ocean and bridge the gap from Africa-Eurasia to the Americas.
This had dramatic effects on both continents, in one of the most famous historical Outside Context Problems. The Europeans brought with them diseases that the Americans had never before encountered, and an uncertain number, perhaps over 90%, of Native Americans were killed in a series of devastating epidemics. The Europeans also had the technological advantage of horses, steel and guns that allowed them to overpower the Aztec and Incan empires, along with other cultures of North America.
Gold and resources from the Americas began to be shipped to Europe, while at the same time large numbers of European colonists began to emigrate to the west. To meet the great demand for labour in the new colonies, the mass export of Africans as slaves began. Soon much of the Americas had a large racial underclass of slaves. In West Africa, a series of thriving states developed along the coast, becoming prosperous from the exploitation of suffering central African peoples.
Europe's maritime expansion, unsurprisingly given geography, was largely the work of the continent's Atlantic seaboard states: Portugal, Spain, England, France, Holland. The Portuguese and Spanish Empires were at first the predominant conquerors and source of influence, but soon the more northern English, French and Dutch began to dominate the Atlantic. In a series of wars fought in the 17th and 18th centuries, culminating with the Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the first world power. It accumulated an empire that spanned the globe, controlling, at its peak, approximately one-quarter of the world's land surface.
Meanwhile, the voyages of Admiral Zheng He were halted by China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), established after the expulsion of the Mongols. A commercial revolution, sometimes described as "incipient capitalism," was also abortive. The Ming Dynasty would eventually fall to the Manchus, whose Qing Dynasty oversaw, at first, a period of calm and prosperity, but would increasingly fall prey to Western encroachment.
Soon after the invasion of the Americas, Europeans had exerted their technological advantage over the peoples of Asia as well. In the 19th century Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Egypt and Malaya, the French took Indochina, while the Dutch occupied Indonesia. The British also occupied several of the areas still populated by neolithic peoples, including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and as in the Americas large numbers of British colonists began to emigrate to these areas. In the late nineteenth century, the last unclaimed areas of Africa were divided among the European powers.
This era in Europe saw the Age of Reason lead to the Scientific Revolution, which changed our understanding of the world and made possible the Industrial Revolution, a major transformation of the world’s economies. It began in Britain and used new modes of production such as the factory, mass production, and mechanisation to produce a wide array of materials faster and for less labour than previous methods. The Age of Reason also led to the beginnings of democracy as we know it today, in the American and French revolutions in the late 18th century. Democracy would grow to have a profound effect on world events and quality of life. During the Industrial Revolution, the world economy was soon based on coal, as new methods of transport such as railways and steam ships made the world a smaller place. Meanwhile, industrial pollution and damage to the environment, present since the discovery of fire and the beginning of civilization, accelerated tenfold.
Twentieth century
The twentieth century saw the domination of the world by Europe wane, at least partly from the internal destruction of World War II, and the United States and the Soviet Union rise as superpowers. Following World War II, the United Nations was founded in the hopes that it could prevent conflicts among nations and make future wars impossible. After 1990 the Soviet Union collapsed and the United States became the sole superpower, termed by some a "hyperpower." (See "Pax Americana.")
The century saw the rise of powerful ideologies. First, after 1917 in the Soviet Union, was communism, which spread to Eastern Europe after 1945, and China in 1949, and to other, scattered nations in the Third World during the 1950s and 1960s. The 1920s saw militaristic fascist dictatorships gain control of Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain.
These transitions were evinced through wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. The First World War destroyed many of Europe's old monarchies, and weakened France and Britain. The Second World War saw most of the militaristic dictatorships in Europe destroyed and communism advance into Eastern Europe and Asia. This led to the Cold War, a forty-year stand-off between the United States, the Soviet Union and their respective allies. All of humanity and complex forms of life were put into jeopardy by the development of nuclear weapons. After out-spending the Soviet Union on weaponry, the US witnessed the collapse and fragmentation of the Soviet state, with some of its former republics re-joining Russia in a commonwealth, others reaching out toward western Europe.
The same century saw vast progress in technology, and a large increase in life expectancy and standard of living for the majority of humanity. As the world economy switched from one based on coal to one based on oil, new communications and transportation technologies continued to make the world more united. The technological developments of the century also contributed to problems with the environment, though urban pollution is lower today than in the days of coal.
The latter half of the century saw the rise of the information age and globalization dramatically increase trade and cultural exchange. Space exploration reached throughout the solar system. DNA, the very template of life, was discovered, and the human genome was sequenced, promising to eventually change the face of human disease. The number of scientific papers published each year today far surpasses the total number published prior to 1900[2], and doubles approximately every 15 years.[3] Global literacy rates continue to increase, and the percentage of the global society's labour pool needed to produce society's food has continued to decrease substantially over the century (Kurzweil 1999).
The same period raised prospects of an end to human history, precipitated by unmanaged global hazards: nuclear proliferation, the greenhouse effect and other forms of environmental degradation caused by the "fissile-fossil complex," international conflicts prompted by the dwindling of resources, fast-spreading epidemics such as HIV, and the passage of near-earth asteroids and comets.
The development of states had always taken impetus from hope of gain and fear of loss. The sense of national identity had always been forged in conflicts with outsiders who were perceived as a threat. As the 20th century closed, the world witnessed the rise of what some saw as a new superstate, the European Union. Tentative steps were also taken, at emulating the European Union, by states in Asia, Africa and South America.
Globalization and Westernization
The world was politically united by Europeans, who colonized most of the world outside Europe. Western culture modernized rapidly due to the industrial revolution and began to dominate the world in the 19th and 20th century. Western culture was greatly influenced by other civilizations. There are still enormous cultural differences between world regions, although the trend is towards unification with a western dominance.
The mercantile empires of Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain in the 15th to 19th century only dominated the oceans, but not the land. Many thinkers knew this and they saw the Islamic and Chinese civilizations as equal. The industrialization and the social and political changes in the western world of the 18th and 19th century led to a feeling of superiority among western thinkers and politicians. Africa and most of Asia became European controlled, while European descendants ruled in the Australia and the Americas. New ideologies emerged aimed at reshaping the world. Social darwinists and imperialists generally believed that white people were superior and that they should make the primitives (other cultures) civilized by introducing western ways of production and western ideologies such as christianity. This way, the primitive people could have a 'better', 'more moral' lifestyle, although it was assumed that they could never be as cultivated as the whites. Marxists and liberals wanted to educate primitive people, so they could become as civilized and successful as the westerners. Marxists and liberals wanted to civilize the working classes in western countries as well. Marxists believe that the society is responsible for the behaviour of its citizens and that the society should be changed in order to make the world better. Liberals believe in freedom and market and want individuals to take self-responsibility. A society should guarantee freedom in order for individuals to develop as well as possible.
The 20th century witnessed a strong polarization between these ideologies. Many people lost their belief in the western moral superiority due to the atrocities of the world wars. Social darwinism suffered a great loss when nazi-Germany was defeated during the Second World War. The United States and the Soviet Union enforced decolonization. The Civil Rights movement and the hippie counter culture of 1960s led to a worldwide domination of a humanist ideology which is still reality today.
Marxists attempted to change society with different methods. The two most powerful movements were social democracy and communism. Social democrats tried to reach a socialist society by changing society in cooperation with other political parties. The welfare state was created in many western countries. Left-wing christians and liberals also shared a belief in the welfare state. Today the welfare state is unpopular because it withholds economical progress due to inefficient investments. Communists attempted to create a socialist society by destroying the old society and the old elites and ideologies. Only Marxism was allowed. It led to genocide and substantial poverty. It was widely viewed as unsuccessful. Soviet and Chinese leaders and intellectuals discovered that the 'western' style of production with self responsibility led to continuing process, while the communist societies were in a continuous economic depression. The communist countries were forced to become capitalistic.
Non-western civilizations were first dominated by western colonizers, which treated the local population with contempt. New elites wanted to transform their societies in successful western countries, but without the rascist ideologies. Nationalistic and communistic movements demanded independence and wanted equal sharing in the world. Many colonies became independent in the 1960s. Eventually there was much optimism that the new underdeveloped countries could become developed, but the economical situation generally grew worse after becoming independent. Civil wars and dictatorships wrecked the local societies and economies. Latin America and Asia are developing nowadays, but the Middle East and Africa are stagnating.
Conservatives around the world were afraid that their society would collapse due to modernization and new ideologies. They tried to turn the tide of change. Conservatism is popular in many parts of the world. Neo-conservatism dominates the United States. Islamic fundamentalists try to stop secularization by waging war against western culture. Many state leaders and intellectuals in subsaharan Africa criticize the west for its "immoral" lifestyle. Conservatism is fed for a large part by a religious belief in the afterlife.
Attempts to unite the world by military conquest or revolution were no success. The nation state became the most important institute in the (western) world. Colonial empires in the 19th century were based on nation states, who controlled large territories and occupied nations which didn't belonged to the mother nation. Nation states united in federations during the Twentieth Century. During the interbellum, the League of Nations tried to prevent wars. After the Second World War, the United Nations tried to solve many of problems which couldn't be solved by individual nation states. The League of Nations and United Nations were dependent on the voluntary contribution and wish of cooperation of individual member states. These organizations can't function without the support of large countries, which was apparent during the 1930s and 1940s and during the Cold War. Many states are no nation states but exist out of multiple nations (sub-Saharan Africa), or only have a small portion of a nation within its boundaries (Arab countries).
Popularity of the free market economy has increased since the 19th century. State controlled economy was popular in the middle of the 20th century due to the theory of Keynes and the communist states. Free market economies led to an enormous growth in wealth. Side effects are that an underclass of people live in poverty and that natural recourses are becoming depleted. Attempts to turn the world in a big free market were unsuccessful due to protection measures for the local industry and agriculture of developed countries. The free transfer of goods and information led to a growing interdependence of states who are forced to cooperate with other states. This process is called globalization. Overpopulation has been identified as one of the largest worldwide problems at the moment. This problem has been identified much earlier by thinkers like Malthus and Max Weber. Max Weber was afraid that India and China would develop their economies at the cost of Europe. He advocated German imperialism to prevent poverty for the German masses. The technological and economical development of the 20th century proved that the western countries can have economical growth through internal development. The European countries at the time of Max Weber can be seen as Third World countries compared to the wealth they have now. China, India and Latin America are developing in the last decades which has consequences for the employment in western countries.
The American culture has made a huge impact in the world. The movies of Hollywood and jazz dominated the whole western world starting in the 1920s. Youth culture started in America. Jeans, t-shirts, American style of advertising and pop music gained worldwide dominance in the 1960s and 1970s. The Anglo-Saxon economic reforms of the 1980s became an example for the rest of the world. German science and corporatism had the best results in the 19th and early 20th century. American scientists took over this roll after the Second World War. New ideas about how society could be in the future were introduced by writers of the science fiction genre.
Historiography of world history
- See also historiography
Non-specialist attempts to explain the history of the world have focused either on a primitively teleological schema (religious or political change, according to the author's personal bias), or have turned into mere chronological lists of events. These non-specialist works tended to be vastly inadequate and more informative of authorial bias than past happenings. From the 19th Century academic historians avoided making large statements about world history, due to the emphasis within Rankeian and Marxist historiography on specific and detailed relationships with sources: a requirement impossible in a large survey work. However, popular demand and the ability to summarise the results of Rankeian and Marxist inspired research has allowed historians to begin writing significant works about world history since the middle of the twentieth century. Suprisingly, Marx's non-specialist opinion that class struggle was at the centre of human history has had a large impact on historian's writings, and tends to inform a Marxist historian's concept of historical telos.
Of particular interest is Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and Capitalism and material life, 1400-1800 which make convincing statements about very long periods of human history. At the heart of Braudel's argument is the concept that geography determines long periods of history. Braundel's works inherit the idea of a modern, academically demonstrable telos, from Marxist historiography.
The notion of geographic determinism as an historical explanation has recently been popularised by Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, in which Diamond asserts that basic geographic formations determined the nature of the development of specific human socities.
From the 1970s and 1980s many historians developed histories of particular themes across time, such as the status of women. They also emphasize on the significance of ideas and persons for major changes in history. Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx have had an enormous impact on societies which influenced geography instead of vice versa. These thematic studies, while not having the broad scope of other world histories, present compelling visions of long term change and human difference across time. As these thematic histories are more manageable than vast survey works, much scholarly work is being conducted in this area.
See also
- History of Africa
- History of the Americas
- History of Antarctica
- History of Asia
- History of Australia
- History of East Asia
- History of Eurasia
- History of West Eurasia
- History of Europe
- History of the Middle East
- History of North America
- History of South America
- History of South Asia
- History of Southeast Asia
- Technological singularity
Footnotes
- ^ "Origins of Modern Humans: Multiregional or Out of Africa?". January 17.
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References
- . ISBN 0393038912.
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