Todo

Welcome to World History
What is World History?

Although this might seem like an easy question to answer, it is not. There is very little consensus on what world history is and how it should be taught. Think for a moment about the amount of information that is required to teach the history of the world. Most colleges divide the history of the United States into two or three sections! That isone “nation” and a span of maybe 500 years. In this class, we will be looking at the development of various civilizations on the major continents, covering several thousands years of history. It is a daunting undertaking. No single person can accumulate that much knowledge and information alone. Therefore, how can we tackle World History?

1. Cooperation
Historians must rely on the work ofarcheologists, anthropologists, botanists, linguists, demographic studies, geologists, etc. Understanding the past…and particularly the ancient past, means that historians must abandon their preference for the written word and collaborate with other specialists.

2. Understanding the Present, the Past, and the difference between the two.
This requires that historians be painfully aware of theassumptions, definitions, and biases that they and others bring to the work of writing history. There is tremendous temptation to link peoples in the ancient world to our present conditions, situations, and realities. DON’T. The ancient civilizations are ancient. The Greeks are dead and gone. Although we have documents that survive, they do not tell us about the present…they only can tell us about thepast. Realize that the civilizations that we think we know well, are still mostly mysteries. 70% of the Egyptian ruins are still buried in the Sahara. For every ton of soil that we have sifted on the Nile, only a teaspoon has been sifted on the Niger. Historians cannot “fill in the blanks” with answers from our present day situations. That is a dangerous approach to take! 

3. Work against themodel of Western Civilization
Until recently, most colleges offered courses in Western Civilization. It has only been in the last decades that we have started to introduce World History or World Civilizations into the general education offerings. Because World History is so difficult to define, most of the early textbooks simply expanded Western Civilization courses to include more of the world.This is problematic. Western Civilization is designed to tell the “Rise of the West” beginning with ancient Greece and Rome and ending in the modern day rise and decline of the European Empires and Nations. Starting at point “A” and ending at “C” ignores important context. Never underestimate the extent to which people move, interact, and exchange. Don’t assume that the ancient world was static orsimple. It was a complex reality and so seeking to understand the connections between people is a far more useful model for understanding World History. Be wary of talk about modern day nations and their connection to ancient peoples. Pay attention to the words that are used to describe ancient peoples – does democracy mean then what it means to us now? Consider this warning given by an historianat UCLA: “One cannot step into the same river twice. Those rivers that are peoples continue to flow, but the waters of the past are not those of the present or future. Europeans must recognize the difference between past and present if they are to build a future.” What do you think this means?

As we embark on our first unit and start to consider “civilization”, there will be a power pointpresentation available. It includes a chart that demonstrates the most basic interaction between people. On one side there are “the few who rule”. The other side shows “the many who are ruled”. How do they interact? – The “claim to resources” is important as is the exercise of power. What do middlemen do? How is power different from authority? Perhaps the easiest way to explain the difference is that...