The history of the world, by convention, is human history, from the first appearance of Homo sapiens to the present. Human
history is marked both by a gradual accretion of discoveries and inventions, as well as by quantum leaps — paradigm shifts, and revolutions — that comprise epochs in the material and spiritual evolution of humankind.
Human history, as opposed to prehistory, has in the past been said to begin
with the invention, independently at several sites on Earth, of writing, which created the infrastructure for lasting, accurately
transmitted memories and thus for the diffusion and growth of knowledge.[1] Writing, in its turn, had
been made necessary in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, which had given
rise to civilization, i.e., to permanent settled communities, which fostered a growing diversity of trades.
Such scattered habitations, centered about life-sustaining bodies of water — rivers and lakes — coalesced over
time into ever larger units, in parallel with the evolution of ever more efficient means of transport. These processes of coalescence, spurred by rivalries and conflicts between adjacent communities, gave rise over millennia to ever
larger states, and then to superstates or empires. In Europe, the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 CE) is commonly taken as signaling the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
A thousand years later, in the mid-15th century, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of
modern printing, employing movable type, revolutionized
communication, helping end the Middle Ages and usher
in modern times, the European Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology, especially in Europe, had reached a critical mass that sparked into existence the Industrial
Revolution. Over the quarter-millennium since, knowledge, technology, commerce, and —
concomitantly with these — the potential destructiveness of war have accelerated
at an astonishing rate, creating the opportunities and perils that now confront the
human communities that together inhabit the planet.
Paleolithic Period
-
"Paleolithic" means "Old Stone Age." This was the earliest period of the Stone Age.
Studies of genetics and of fossils place the origin of
modern Homo sapiens in Africa[2] some 200,000 BP during the
Paleolithic, after a long period of evolution.
Ancestors of humans, such as Homo erectus, had been using simple tools for over a
thousand millennia, but as time progressed, tools became more refined and complex.
Sometime during the Paleolithic, humans also developed language as well as a
conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead. The latter suggests a
development of foresight after consistent
exposure to rotting corpses.
During this period the first prehistoric art also appeared.
During the Paleolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers.
According to the Toba catastrophe theory, the Lake Toba supereruption, some 75,000 years ago, may have had
global effects, killing off as many as 59 million people and creating a population bottleneck.
From Africa and the frost-free zones of Europe and
Asia, modern humans spread rapidly over the globe. Humankind's expansion 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 BP, humans had colonised nearly all the ice-free parts
of the globe.
Hunter-gatherer societies have tended to be very small, though in some cases they
have developed social stratification; and long-distance contacts may be possible,
as in the case of Indigenous Australian "highways."
Eventually most hunter-gatherer societies have either developed into, or been absorbed into, larger agricultural states. Those that have not, either have perished or have
remained in isolation, as is the case with the small hunter-gatherer societies that are still present in remote regions.
Mesolithic Period
-
The "Mesolithic," or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek "mesos," "middle," and
"lithos," "stone") was a period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.
The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and
ended with the introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by geographic region.
In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was already underway by the end of the
Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited
glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic" is sometimes
preferred.
Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended
have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, societies were able to live well on rich food
supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours which are
preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000
BCE (6,000 BP) in northern Europe.
Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In
forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been
found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was
needed for agriculture.
The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools —
microliths and microburins. Fishing tackle, stone adzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first
occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before
spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of
Spain and Portugal, and the Kebaran culture of Palestine. Independent discovery is not always ruled
out.
Neolithic Period
-
"Neolithic" means "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological and
social development, toward the end of the "Stone Age."
Beginning in the 10th millennium BCE (12,000 BP), the Neolithic period saw the development of early villages, agriculture, animal domestication and tools.
Rise of agriculture
-
A major change, described by prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe as the
"Agricultural Revolution," occurred about the 10th millennium BCE with
the adoption of agriculture. The Sumerians first began
farming ca. 9500 BCE. By 7000 BCE, agriculture had spread to India; by 6000 BCE, to Egypt; by
5000 BCE, to China. About 2700 BCE, agriculture had come to Mesoamerica.
Although attention has tended to concentrate on the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia and Southeast Asia indicates that agricultural systems,
using different crops and animals, may in some cases have developed there nearly as early.
A further advance in Middle Eastern agriculture occurred with the development of organised irrigation, and the use of a specialised workforce, by the
Sumerians, beginning about 5500 BCE. Stone was supplanted by bronze and iron in implements of
agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until then been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and
bronze tools, decorations and weapons began to be commonplace about 3000 BCE. 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 Chavín horizon (900 BCE). The
Moche did have metal armor, knives and tableware. Even the metal-poor Inca had metal-tipped plows, at least after the conquest of Chimor. However, little
archaeological research has so far been done in Peru, and nearly all the khipus (recording devices, in the form of knots, used by the Incas) were burned in the Spanish conquest of Peru. As late as 2004, entire cities were still being unearthed. Some digs suggest that steel
may have been produced there before it was developed in Europe.
The cradles of early civilizations were river
valleys, such as the Euphrates and Tigris valleys in Mesopotamia, the Nile
valley in Egypt, the Indus valley in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys in China. Some nomadic peoples, such as the Indigenous
Australians and the Bushmen of southern Africa, did not practice agriculture until relatively
recent times.
Before 1800, many populations did not belong to states. Scientists disagree as to whether the
term "tribe" should be applied to the kinds of societies that these people lived in. Many tribal
societies, in Europe and elsewhere, transformed into states when they were threatened, or otherwise impinged on, by existing
states. Examples are the Marcomanni, Poland and
Lithuania. Some "tribes," such as the Kassites and the
Manchus, conquered states and were absorbed by them.
Agriculture made possible complex societies — civilizations. States and markets emerged.
Technologies enhanced people's ability to control nature and to develop transport and communication.
Rise of religion
- See also: History of
religion
It is to the Neolithic that most historians trace the beginnings of complex
religion. Religious belief in this period commonly consisted in the worship of a Mother
Goddess, a Sky Father, and of the Sun and
Moon as deities, with sun worship practiced widely.
Shrines developed, which over time evolved into temple
establishments, complete with a complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses and other
functionaries. Typical of the Neolithic was a tendency to worship anthropomorphic
deities.
The earliest surviving religious scriptures are the Pyramid Texts, produced by
the Egyptians (dating back to 3100 B.C.E).[dubious – discuss]
Civilization
State
-
The first Agricultural Revolution led to several major changes. It permitted far
denser populations, which in time organised into states. There are several definitions for the
term, "state." Max Weber and Norbert Elias defined a
state as an organization of people that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a particular geographic area.
Borders delineate states — a prominent example is the
Great Wall of China, which
stretches over 6,700 km, and was first erected in the 3rd century BCE to protect the north from
nomadic invaders. It has since been rebuilt and augmented several times.
The first states appeared in western Iran, Mesopotamia,
ancient Egypt and ancient India in the late 4th and
early 3rd millennia BCE. In Mesopotamia and Iran, there were
several city-states. Ancient Egypt began as a state
without cities, but soon developed them.
A state ordinarily needs an army for the legitimate exercise of force. An army needs
a bureaucracy to maintain it. The only exception to this appears to have been the
Indus Valley civilization, for which there is no evidence of the existence of
a military force.
States appeared in China in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BCE.
Major wars were waged among states in the Middle East. About 1275 BCE, the
Hittites and Egyptians concluded the treaty of
Kadesh, the world's oldest recorded peace treaty.
Empires came into being, with conquered areas ruled by central tribes, as in Persia (6th century BCE), the Mauryan Empire (4th century BCE),
China (3rd century BCE), and the Roman Empire (1st century
BCE).
Clashes among empires included those that took place in the 8th century, when the Islamic
Caliphate of Arabia (ruling from Spain to
Iran) and China's Tang dynasty
(ruling from Xinjiang to Korea) fought for decades for control
of Central Asia.
The largest contiguous land empire was the 13th-century Mongolian Empire. By then, most people in Europe, Asia and North Africa belonged to states. There were
states as well in Mexico and western South America. States
controlled more and more of the world's territory and population; the last "empty" territories, with the exception of uninhabited
Antarctica, would be divided up among states by the Treaty of Berlin (1878).[citation needed]
City and trade
-
Agriculture also created, and allowed for the storage of, food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production.
The development of agriculture permitted the creation of the first cities.
These were centers of trade, manufacture and
political power with nearly no agricultural production of their own. Cities established
a symbiosis with their surrounding countrysides, absorbing
agricultural products and providing, in return, manufactures and varying degrees of military protection.
The development of cities equated, both etymologically and in fact, with the rise of
civilization itself: first Sumerian civilization, in lower
Mesopotamia (3500 BCE), followed by Egyptian
civilization along the Nile (3300 BCE) and Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley (3300 BCE).
Elaborate cities grew up, with high levels of social and economic complexity. Each of these civilizations was so different from
the others that they almost certainly originated independently. It was at this time, and due to the needs of cities, that
writing and extensive trade were introduced.
In China, proto-urban societies may have developed from 2500 BCE, but the first dynasty to be identified by archeology is the
Shang Dynasty.
The 2nd millennium BCE saw the emergence of civilization in Crete, mainland Greece and central Turkey.
In the Americas, civilizations such as the Maya,
Moche and Nazca emerged in Mesoamerica and Peru at the end of the 1st millennium BCE.
The world's first coinage was introduced around 625 BC in Lydia (western Anatolia, in modern Turkey).[3]
Trade routes appeared in the eastern Mediterranean in the 4th millennium BCE. Long-range trade routes first appeared in the 3rd millennium
BCE, when Sumerians in Mesopotamia traded with the
Harappan civilization of the Indus
Valley. The Silk Road between China and Syria began in the 2nd millennium BCE. Cities in Central Asia and
Persia were major crossroads of these trade routes. The Phoenician and Greek civilizations founded trade-based empires in the Mediterranean basin in the 1st millennium BCE.
In the late 1st millennium CE and early 2nd millennium CE, the Arabs dominated the trade routes
in the Indian Ocean, East Asia, and the Sahara. In the late 1st millennium, Arabs and Jews dominated
trade in the Mediterranean. In the early 2nd millennium, Italians took over this role, and Flemish and German cities were at the center of trade routes in northern Europe. In
all areas, major cities developed at crossroads along trade routes.
Religion and philosophy
-
New philosophies and religions arose in
both east and west, particularly about the 6th century BCE. Over time, a great variety of religions developed around the world,
with some of the earliest major ones being Hinduism and Buddhism in India, and Zoroastrianism
in Persia. The Abrahamic religions trace
their origin to Judaism, around 1800 BCE.
In the east, three schools of thought were to dominate Chinese thinking until the modern day.
These were Taoism, Legalism and
Confucianism. The Confucian tradition, which would attain dominance, looked for
political morality not to the force of law but to the power
and example of tradition.
In the west, the Greek philosophical tradition, represented by Plato and Aristotle, was diffused throughout Europe and the Middle East in the 4th century BCE by the conquests of
Alexander of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great.
Civilizations and regions
-
By the last centuries BCE, the Mediterranean, the Ganges River and the Yellow River had become seats of
empires which future rulers would seek to emulate. In India, the Mauryan Empire ruled most of southern Asia, while the Pandyas ruled southern India. In China, the Qin and Han dynasties extended their imperial governance through political unity, improved communications and Emperor
Wu's establishment of state monopolies.
In the west, the ancient Greeks established a civilization that is considered by most
historians to be the foundational culture of modern western civilization. Some centuries
later, in the 3rd century BCE, the Romans began expanding their territory through conquest
and colonisation. By the reign of Emperor Augustus (late 1st century BCE), Rome controlled all
the lands surrounding the Mediterranean.
The great empires depended on military annexation of territory and on the formation of defended settlements to become agricultural centres. The
relative peace that the empires brought, encouraged international trade, most
notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean that had been developed by the
time of the Hellenistic Age, and the Silk
Road.
The empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy. These costs
fell most heavily on the peasantry, while land-owning magnates
were increasingly able to evade centralised control and its costs. The pressure of barbarians
on the frontiers hastened the process of internal dissolution. China's Han Empire fell into civil war in 220 CE, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralised and divided about the same time.
Throughout the temperate zones of Eurasia,
America and North Africa, empires continued to rise and
fall.
The gradual break-up of the Roman Empire, spanning several centuries after the 2nd
century CE, coincided with the spread of Christianity westward from the Middle East. The western Roman Empire fell under the domination of Germanic tribes in the 5th century, and these polities gradually
developed into a number of warring states, all associated in one way or another with the Roman Catholic Church. The remaining part of the Roman Empire, in the eastern Mediterranean, would
henceforth be the Byzantine Empire. Centuries later, a limited unity would be restored
to western Europe through the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, comprising a number of states in what is now Germany, Italy, and France.
In China, dynasties would similarly rise and fall. After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms,
Nomadic tribes from the north began to invade in the 4th century CE, eventually conquering areas
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 a second golden age. The Tang Dynasty also splintered, however, and after half a century of turmoil the
Northern Song Dynasty reunified China in 982. Yet pressure from nomadic empires to the
north became increasingly urgent. 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 central, western Europe, most of Southeast Asia and Japan.
In these times, northern India was ruled by the Guptas. In southern India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms
emerged: Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. The ensuing stability contributed to heralding in the golden age of Hindu culture in the 4th and 5th centuries CE.
At this time also, in Central America, vast societies also began to be built, the
most notable being the Maya and Aztecs of
Mesoamerica. 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 Aztecs was built on neighboring cultures and was influenced by conquered
peoples such as the Toltecs.
In South America, the 14th and 15th centuries saw the rise of the Inca. The Inca Empire of Tawantinsuyu,
with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire Andes
Mountain Range. The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent
road system and unrivaled masonry.
Islam, which began in 7th century Arabia, was
also one of the most remarkable forces in world history, growing from a handful of adherents to become the foundation of a series
of empires in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, India
and present-day Indonesia.
In northeastern Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia remained
Christian enclaves while 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 brought prosperity to North Africa, and the rise of a series of kingdoms in the Sahel.
This period in the history of the world was marked by slow but steady technological advances, with important developments such
as the stirrup and moldboard plow arriving every few centuries.
There were, however, in some regions, periods of rapid technological progress. Most important, perhaps, was the Mediterranean area during the Hellenistic period, when
hundreds of technologies were invented. Such periods were followed by periods of technological decay, as during the
Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early
medieval period.
Rise of Europe
Background
-
The invention of the movable-type
printing press in 1450s
Germany was awarded #1 of the Top 100 Greatest Events of the
Millennium by
LIFE Magazine. By some estimates, less than 50 years after the first
Bible was printed in 1455, more than nine million books were in print.
Nearly all the agricultural civilizations were heavily constrained by their environments. Productivity remained low, and climatic changes
easily instigated boom and bust cycles that brought
about civilizations' rise and fall. By about 1500, however, there was a qualitative change in world history. Technological advance and the wealth generated by trade gradually brought about a widening of possibilities.
Even before the 16th century, some civilizations had developed advanced societies. In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans had produced societies supported by a
developed monetary economy, with financial
markets and private-property rights. These institutions created the conditions for
continuous capital accumulation, with increased productivity. By some estimates, the per-capita income of Roman Italy, one of the most advanced regions of
the Roman Empire, was comparable to the per-capita incomes of the most advanced economies
in the 18th century. (see [1]) The most developed regions of classical civilization were more urbanized than any other region
of the world until early modern times. This civilization had, however, gradually declined and collapsed; historians still debate
the causes.
China had developed an advanced monetary economy by
1,000 CE. 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 and China's society was highly
urbanized. The country was technologically advanced as it enjoyed a monopoly in piston bellows
and printing. (see Joseph Needham). But, after earlier onslaughts by the Jurchens, in 1279 the
remnants of the Sung empire were conquered by the
Mongols.
Outwardly, Europe's Renaissance, beginning in the 14th
century, consisted in the rediscovery of the classical world's scientific
contributions, and in the economic and social rise of
Europe. But the Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to Humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and finally the great transformation of the Industrial Revolution. The Scientific Revolution in
the 17th century, however, had no immediate impact on technology; only in the second half of
the 18th century did scientific advances begin to be applied to practical invention.
The advantages that Europe had developed by the mid-18th century were two: an entrepreneurial culture, and the wealth generated by the Atlantic
trade (including the African slave trade). While some historians conclude that, in
1750, labour productivity in the most developed regions of China was still on a par with that of Europe's Atlantic economy (see Wolfgang Keller and Carol
Shiue), other historians like Angus Maddison hold that the per-capita productivity of
western Europe had by the late Middle Ages surpassed
that of all other regions.[4]
A number of explanations are proffered as to why, from the late Middle Ages on, Europe rose to surpass other civilizations,
become the home of the Industrial Revolution, and dominate the world.
Max Weber argued that it was due to a Protestant work
ethic that encouraged Europeans to work harder and longer than others. Another socioeconomic explanation looks to
demographics: Europe, with its celibate clergy, colonial emigration,
high-mortality urban centers, periodic famines and
outbreaks of the Black Death, continual warfare, and
late age of marriage had far more restrained population growth, compared to Asian
cultures. A relative shortage of labour meant that surpluses could be invested in labour-saving technological advances such as
water-wheels and mills, spinners and looms, steam
engines and shipping, rather than fueling population growth.
Many have also argued that Europe's institutions were superior, that property rights and
free-market economics were stronger than elsewhere due to an ideal of freedom peculiar to Europe. In recent years, however, scholars such as Kenneth Pomeranz have challenged this view, although the revisionist approach to world history has also
met with criticism for systematically "downplaying" European achievements.[5]
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, are relatively flat. By contrast, the
Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians 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. Before
the era of firearms, these nomads were militarily superior to the agricultural states on the periphery of the Eurasian 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. India and China were subject to periodic invasions, and Russia spent a couple of centuries under the
Mongol-Tatar Yoke. Central and western Europe, logistically more distant from the
