During the early modern period, spanning from approximately 1500 to 1800CE, European powers explored and colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw substantial intellectual, cultural, and technological advances in Europe driven by the Renaissance, the Reformation in Germany giving rise to Protestantism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution, substantial to the Great Divergence, and began the modern period starting around 1800CE. The rapid growth in productive power further increased international trade and colonization, linking the different civilizations in the process of globalization, and cemented European dominance throughout the 19th century. Over the last quarter-millennium, despite the devastating effects of two world wars, there has been a great acceleration in the rates of growth of many domains, including human population, agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and environmental degradation.
The study of human history relies on insights from academic disciplines including history, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and genetics. To provide an accessible overview, researchers divide human history by a variety of periodizations.
Humans evolved in Africa from great apes through the lineage of hominins, which arose 7–5million years ago.[1] The ability to walk on two legs emerged in early hominins after the split from chimpanzees, as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats.[2] Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools c.3.3million years ago,[a] marking the advent of the Paleolithic era.[6]
The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus.[7] The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia,[8] and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago.[9] The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size.[10]H. erectus[b] evolved about 2 million years ago[11][c] and was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia.[13] Perhaps as early as 1.5million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking.[14]
Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia, and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia.[15] Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species.[16] Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.[17]DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non-sub-Saharan African populations. Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans.[18]
Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago[d] from the species Homo heidelbergensis.[e][20] Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry and ocher to adorn the body.[21] By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring.[22] One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate.[23] Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism[24] or shamanism.[25] The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old.[26] Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic.[27]
The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago.[28][f] The dominant view among scholars is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago.[32][g]H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago,[34]Europe 45,000 years ago,[35] and the Americas 21,000 years ago.[36] These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age, when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable.[37] Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe.[38] Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and the Neanderthal extinction.[39] These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.[40]
Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle.[41] Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe,[42] and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centers of origin.[43]Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley, sheep, and goats.[44] The Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000–7000 BCE; the Yellow River Valley may have cultivated millet by 7000 BCE.[45] Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China.[46] People in Africa's Sahara cultivated sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE,[h] while other agricultural centers arose in the Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests.[48] In the Indus River Valley, crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE.[49] In the Americas, squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE.[50] Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes of South America, where the llama was also domesticated.[51] It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments.[52]
Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed.[53] Some theories identify population growth as the main factor, leading people to seek out new food sources. Others see population growth not as the cause but as the effect of the associated improvements in food supply.[54] Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology.[55] The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production,[56] permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities and states.[57]
Cities were centers of trade, manufacturing, and political power.[58] They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding countrysides, receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return.[59]Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the Eurasian Steppe or the African Sahel.[60] Conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history.[61]
Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE.[48] Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments.[48] The first signs of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, date to around 4500 BCE,[62] but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE.[63]
These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, and systems for keeping records.[72] These cultures variously invented the wheel,[73] mathematics,[74] bronze-working,[75] sailing boats,[76] the potter's wheel,[75]woven cloth,[77] construction of monumental buildings,[77] and writing.[78]Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites.[79]
Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.[80] It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE),[81] Egypt (around 3250 BCE),[82] China (1200 BCE),[83] and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE).[84] The earliest system of writing[j] was the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, which began as a system of pictographs, whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract.[86][k] Other influential early writing systems include Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Indus script.[88] In China, writing was first used during the Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE).[89]
Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions.[90] The Bronze Age also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots, that allowed armies to move faster.[91] Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings of archaic globalization.[92] Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England.[93]
The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires.[94] In Egypt, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE.[95] Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.[96] Mesopotamian history was characterized by frequent wars between city-states, leading to shifts in hegemony from one city to another.[97] In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and the Neo-Sumerians arose in this area.[98] In Crete, the Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.[99]
Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world.[100] By 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop.[101] It flourished until the Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE.[102] The foundations of many cultural aspects in India were laid in the Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), including the emergence of Hinduism.[103][l] From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent.[105]
Speakers of the Bantu languages began expanding across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE until 1000 CE.[106] Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in the displacement of the Pygmy peoples and the Khoisan, and in the spread of mixed farming and ironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for later states.[107]
In the Americas, the Norte Chico culture emerged in Peru around 3100 BCE.[67] The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of Caral, dated 2627–1977 BCE.[109] The later Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first Andean state,[110] centered on the religious site at Chavín de Huantar.[111] Other important Andean cultures include the Moche, whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the Nazca, who created animal-shaped designs in the desert called Nazca lines.[112] The Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE[113] and are known for the colossal stone heads that they carved from basalt.[114] They also devised the Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the Maya and Teotihuacan.[115] Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.[116] They built earthworks such as Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana.[117]
Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along with Taoism and Legalism.[127] The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition.[128] Confucianism would later spread to Korea and Japan.[129] Buddhism reached China in about the 1st century CE[130] and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE.[131] Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia.[132] The Greek philosophical tradition[133] diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon.[134] Both Christianity and Islam developed from the beliefs of Judaism.[135]
Regional empires
The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw a series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects.[136]International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road.[137]
Two major empires began in modern-day Greece. In the late 5th century BCE, several Greek city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars. These wars were followed by the Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization, including the first theatrical performances.[143] The wars led to the creation of the Delian League, founded in 477 BCE,[144] and eventually the Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the Peloponnesian War.[145]Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India.[146] The empire divided into several successor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and the spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to as Hellenization.[147] The Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to 31 BCE when Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome.[148]
In Europe, the Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE[149] and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE.[150] Priorly, the Carthaginian Empire had dominated the Mediterranean, however lost three successive wars to the Romans. The Republic became an empire and by the time of Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea.[151] The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia.[152] The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[153] Christianity was legalized by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution. It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE.[154]
In South Asia, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under Ashoka the Great.[155] From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's golden age.[156] The resulting stability helped usher in a flourishing period for Hindu and Buddhist culture in the 4th and 5th centuries, as well as major advances in science and mathematics.[157] In South India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras, Cholas, and Pandyas.[158]
In China, Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic Warring States period by uniting all of China under the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE).[159] Qin Shi Huang was an adherent of the Legalist school of thought and he displaced the hereditary aristocracy by creating an efficient system of administration staffed by officials appointed according to merit.[160] The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall.[161] It was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureaucratic system with Confucian ideals.[162] The Han dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road.[163] As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia, Manchuria, Korea, and northern Vietnam.[164] As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology.[165] The Han invented the compass, one of China's Four Great Inventions.[166]
In Africa, the Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.[167] It ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of Meroë until the fourth century CE.[168] The Kingdom of Aksum, centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade.[169] It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelae to mark its emperors' graves.[170]
Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE.[171] In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being the Zapotec civilization (700 BCE–1521 CE),[172] and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE),[173] but continued throughout the post-classic period.[174] The great Maya city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas.[175] The Maya developed a writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics.[176] West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the obsidian trade.[177] Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities.[178]
Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world.[179] There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as the Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region.[180]Greek science, technology, and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the Antikythera mechanism.[181] There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period.[182] Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE)[183] and the stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE),[184] both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal.[185] The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing concrete, perfecting the use of arches in construction, and creating aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers.[186]
Most ancient societies practiced slavery,[187] which was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy.[188]Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.[189]
Declines, falls, and resurgence
2nd century to 6th century European migrations by mostly Germanic peoples
The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy.[190] In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and barbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution.[190] The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century.[191] From the Eurasian Steppe, horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent.[192] The development of the stirrup and the use of horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations.[193]
In the 4th centuryCE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors.[194] The Western Roman Empirefell in 476CE to German influence under Odoacer in the Migration Period of the Germanic peoples.[194] The Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire, was more long-lasting.[195] In China, dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored.[196] After the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward.[197]
Portrait of Alfraganus in the Compilatio astronomica, 1493. Islamic astronomers began just before the 9th century to collect and translate Indian, Persian and Greek astronomical texts, adding their own astronomy and enabling later, particularly European astronomy to build on. Symbolic for the post-classical period, a period of an increasing trans-regional literary culture, particularly in the sciences, spreading and building on methods of science.
The post-classical period, dated roughly from 500 to 1500 CE,[m] was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies intensified.[200] From the 10th to 13th centuries, the Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia.[201] It was followed by the Little Ice Age, which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia.[201] Major inventions of the period were gunpowder, guns, and printing, all of which originated in China.[202]
In West Africa, the Mali and Songhai Empires rose.[205] On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold, spices, and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join the Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in the Swahili culture.[206]
China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties.[207] Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations.[179] During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Mississippians,[208]Aztecs,[209] Maya,[210] and Inca reached their zenith.[211]
Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions.[212] This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions.[213] The birth of Islam created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires.[214]
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, initiated the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century.[215] He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in the establishment of Muslim rule on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by 750 CE.[216] The subsequent Abbasid Caliphate oversaw the Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which philosophy, art, and literature flourished.[217][n] Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia[219] the manufacture of paper from China[220] and the decimal positional numbering system from India.[221] At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such as Al-Khwarizmi's development of algebra and Avicenna's comprehensive philosophical system.[222] Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy.[223] Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.[224]
Arab domination of the Middle East ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands.[225] The Seljuks were challenged by Europe during the Crusades, a series of religious wars aimed at rolling back Muslim territory and regaining control of the Holy Land.[226] The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with the sack of Constantinople in 1204.[227] In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongols, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299.[228]
Steppe nomads from Central Asia continued to threaten sedentary societies in the post-classical era, but they also faced incursions from the Arabs and Chinese.[229] China expanded into Central Asia during the Sui dynasty (581–618).[230] The Chinese were confronted by Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in the region.[231] Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the Ordos Desert.[232] In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east.[233] From the 9th to 13th centuries, Central Asia was divided among several powerful states, including the Samanid,[234]Seljuk,[235] and Khwarazmian Empires. These states were succeeded by the Mongols in the 13th century.[236] In 1370, Timur, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the Timurid Empire.[237] Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death,[238] but his descendants retained control of a core area in Central Asia and Iran.[239] They oversaw the Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture.[240]
Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in shaping the culture, values, and institutions of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism.[241] Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in late antiquity.[242] The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire.[243] Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions.[244] Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded.[245] In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe;[246] it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the Vikings, Magyars, and Arabs.[247] It split into West Francia and East Francia, which developed into middle ages France and the Holy Roman Empire, middle ages Germany. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called neume which became the basis for the modern notation system.[248]Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.[249]
13th-century French historiated initial with the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry)
During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase.[250] The establishment of the feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included manorialism, the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and vassalage, a political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors.[251] Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire.[252] In 1054, the Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe.[253] The Crusades were a series of religious wars waged by Christians to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims and succeeded for long enough to establish some Crusader states in the Levant.[254] Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing.[255] Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of Gothic cathedrals and churches was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age.[256] The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century.[257]
The Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and conquered Kievan Rus', along with briefly invadingPolandandHungary.[258]Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in the late 14th century formed a personal union with Poland.[259] The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities.[260] Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe.[261] The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350.[262] It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during the late 1340s,[263] and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished.[264]
After the fall of the Gupta Empire in 550 CE, North India was divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingdoms.[299] Early Muslim incursions began in the northwest in 711 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphate conquered much of present-day Pakistan.[216] The Arab military advance was largely halted at that point, but Islam still spread in India, largely due to the influence of Arab merchants along the western coast.[206] The 9th century saw the Tripartite Struggle for control of North India between the Pratihara, Pala, and Rashtrakuta Empires.[300]
Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of the Chalukyas, Hoysalas, and Cholas.[301] Literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished under the patronage of these kings.[302] Some of the other important states that emerged in South India during this time included the Bahmani Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire.[303]
After a period of relative disunity, China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589.[304] Under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907), China entered a golden age during which political stability and economic prosperity were accompanied by literary and artistic accomplishment, like the poetry of Li Bai and Du Fu.[305][306] The Sui and Tang instituted the long-lasting imperial examination system, under which administrative positions were open only to those who passed an arduous test on Confucian thought and the Chinese classics.[307] China competed with Tibet (618–842) for control of areas in Inner Asia.[308] However, the Tang dynasty eventually splintered. After half a century of turmoil, the Song dynasty reunified much of China.[309] Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent.[310] By 1127, northern China had been lost to the Jurchens in the Jin–Song Wars, and the Mongols conquered all of China in 1279.[311] After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368.[310]
In Japan, the imperial lineage was established during the 3rd century CE, and a centralized state developed during the Yamato period (c. 300–710).[312] Buddhism was introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism.[313] The Nara period (710–794) was characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture, as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture.[314] The Heian period (794–1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans and the samurai.[315] It was during the Heian period that Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel.[316] From 1185 to 1868, Japan was dominated by powerful regional lords (daimyos) and the military rule of warlords (shoguns) such as the Ashikaga and Tokugawa shogunates.[317] The emperor remained but did not wield significant influence.[318] Meanwhile, the power of merchants grew.[319] An influential art style known as ukiyo-e arose during the Tokugawa years, consisting of woodblock prints which originally depicted famous courtesans.[320]
Post-classical Korea saw the end of the Three Kingdoms era, in which the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla had competed for hegemony.[321] This period ended when Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668,[322] marking the beginning of the Northern and Southern States period, with Unified Silla in the south and Balhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north.[323] In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to the Later Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo[o] emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936.[324] The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by the Joseon dynasty,[325] which ruled for approximately 500 years.[326]
Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
The Southeast Asian polity of Funan, which had originated in the 2nd century CE, went into decline in the 6th century as Chinese trade routes shifted away from its ports.[331] It was replaced by the Khmer Empire in 802 CE.[332] The Khmers' capital city, Angkor, was the most extensive city in the world before the industrial age and contained Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument.[333] The Sukhothai (mid-13th century CE) and Ayutthaya Kingdoms (1351 CE) were major powers of the Thais, who were influenced by the Khmers.[334]
Starting in the 9th century, the Pagan Kingdom rose to prominence in modern Myanmar.[335] Its collapse brought about political fragmentation that ended with the rise of the Toungoo Empire in the 16th century.[336] Other notable kingdoms of the period include Srivijaya[337] and Lavo (both coming into prominence in the 7th century), Champa[338] and Hariphunchai (both about 750),[339]Đại Việt (968),[340]Lan Na (13th century),[341]Majapahit (1293),[342]Lan Xang (1353),[343] and Ava (1365).[344] Hinduism and Buddhism had been spreading in Southeast Asia since the 1st century CE when, beginning in the 13th century, Islam arrived and made its way to regions such as present-day Indonesia.[345] This period also saw the emergence of the Malay states, including Brunei and Malacca.[346] In the Philippines, several polities were formed such as Tondo, Cebu, and Butuan.[347]
In North America, this period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern-day United States c.950 CE,[357] marked by the extensive 11th-century urban complex at Cahokia.[358] The Ancestral Puebloans and their predecessors (9th–13th centuries) built extensive permanent settlements, including stone structures that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.[359]
In South America, the 15th century saw the rise of the Inca.[211] The Inca Empire, with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire Andes, making it the most extensive pre-Columbian civilization.[362] The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and elegant stonework.[363]
The early modern period is the era following the European Middle Ages until 1789 or 1800.[q] A common break with the medieval period is placed between 1450 and 1500 which includes a number of significant events: the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, the spread of printing and European voyages of discovery to America and along the African coast.[365] The nature of warfare evolved as the size and organization of military forces on land and sea increased, alongside the wider propagation of gunpowder.[366] The early modern period is significant for the start of proto-globalization,[367] increaslingly centralized bureaucratic states[368] and early forms of capitalism.[364] European powers also began colonizing large parts of the world through maritime empires: first the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, then the French, English, and Dutch Empires.[369] Historians still debate the causes of Europe's rise, which is known as the Great Divergence.[370]
Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack, a result of globalizing maritime trade.
Capitalist economies emerged, initially in the northern Italian republics and some Asian port cities.[371] European states practiced mercantilism by implementing one-sided trade policies designed to benefit the mother country at the expense of its colonies.[372] Starting at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese established trading posts across Africa, Asia, and Brazil, for commodities like gold and spices while also practicing slavery.[373] In the 17th century, private chartered companies were established, such as the English East India Company in 1600 – often described as the first multinational corporation – and the Dutch East India Company in 1602.[374] Meanwhile, in much of the European sphere, serfdom declined and eventually disappeared while the power of the Catholic Church waned.[375]
The Age of Discovery was the first period in which the Old World engaged in substantial cultural, material, and biological exchange with the New World. It began in the late 15th century, when Portugal and Castile sent the first exploratory voyages to the Americas, where Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492. Global integration continued as European colonization of the Americas initiated the Columbian exchange: the exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.[376] It was one of history's most important global events, involving ecology and agriculture.[377] New crops brought from the Americas by 16th-century European seafarers substantially contributed to world population growth.[378]
West and Central Asia
The Ottoman Empire quickly came to dominate the Middle East after conquering Constantinople in 1453, which marked the end of the Byzantine Empire.[379] Persia came under the rule of the Safavids in 1501,[380] succeeded by the Afshars in 1736, the Zands in 1751, and the Qajars in 1794.[381] The Safavids establishedShia Islam as Persia's official religion, thus giving Persia a separate identity from its Sunni neighbors.[382] Along with the Mughals in India, the Ottomans and Safavids are known as the gunpowder empires because of their early adoption of firearms.[383] At the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire began its conquest of the Caucasus.[384] The Uzbeks replaced the Timurids as the preeminent power in Central Asia.[385]
The early modern period in Europe was an era of intense intellectual ferment. The Renaissance – the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginning in Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th[r] – comprised the rediscovery of the classical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe.[387] This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments.[388]Petrarch's poetry, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, and the paintings and sculptures of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, as part of the Northern Renaissance, are some of the great works of the age.[388] After the Renaissance came the Reformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement started in Germany by Martin Luther that resulted in the creation of Protestant Christianity.[389]
The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to humanism[390] and the Scientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment.[391] The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as the Enlightenment, by thinkers such as John Locke and Immanuel Kant.[392] This development was accompanied by secularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres.[393]Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type printing in 1440[s] helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.[395]
In addition to changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans experienced an increase in the power of the state.[396]Absolute monarchs in France, Russia, the Habsburg lands, and Prussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king.[397] In Russia, Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventually replacing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe.[398] The countries of Western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advances and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war.[399] Wars of particular note included the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars.[400] The French Revolution, starting in 1789, laid the groundwork of liberal democracy by overthrowing monarchy. It led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.[401]
In the Indian subcontinent, the Mughal Empire was established under Babur in 1526 and lasted for two centuries.[425] Starting in the northwest, it brought the entire subcontinent under Muslim rule by the late 17th century,[426] except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which remained independent.[427] To resist the Muslim rulers, the Hindu Maratha Empire was founded by Shivaji on the western coast in 1674.[428] The Marathas gradually gained territory from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the Mughal–Maratha Wars (1680–1707).[429]
In 1644, the Ming were supplanted by the Qing,[432] the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which ruled until 1912.[433] Japan experienced its Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), followed by the Edo period (1600–1868).[434] The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, repelling invasions from Japan and China in the 16th and 17th centuries.[435] Expanded maritime trade with Europe significantly affected China and Japan during this period, particularly through the Portuguese in Macau and the Dutch in Nagasaki.[436] However, China and Japan later pursued isolationist policies[t] designed to eliminate foreign influences.[437]
Southeast Asia
In 1511, the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and Indonesian Sumatra.[438] The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641.[374] The Johor Sultanate, centered on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region.[439]
Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca.[445]Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%.[446] In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples.[447] Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves.[448] One side-effect of the slave trade was cultural exchange through which various African traditions found their way to the Americas, including cuisine, music, and dance.[449][v] Portugal claimed Brazil, while Spain seized the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America.[450] The Spanish mined and exported prodigious amounts of gold and silver, leading to a surge in inflation known as the Price Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe.[451]
The long nineteenth century traditionally starts with the French Revolution in 1789,[w] and lasts until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.[460] It saw the global spread of the Industrial Revolution, the greatest transformation of the world economy since the Neolithic Revolution.[461] The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain around 1770 and used new modes of production—the factory, mass production, and mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster while using less labor than previously required.[462] Industrialization raised the global standard of living but caused upheaval as factory owners and workers clashed over wages and working conditions.[463] Along with industrialization came modern globalization, the increasing interconnection of world regions in the economic, political, and cultural spheres.[464] Globalization began in the early 19th century and was enabled by improved transportation technologies such as railroads and steamships.[465]
Empires of the world in 1898
European empires lost territories in Latin America, which won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns,[466] but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world.[467] Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, North Borneo, Hong Kong, and Aden; the French took Indochina; and the Dutch cemented their rule over Indonesia.[468] The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies.[469] Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia.[470] The United States completed its westward expansion, establishing control over the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.[471] In the late 19th century to early 20th century, the European powers, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution, rapidly conquered and colonised almost the entirety of Africa.[472] Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.[473] Imperial rule in Africa involved many atrocities such as those in the Congo Free State and the Herero and Nama genocide.[474]
Within Europe, economic and military competition fostered the creation and consolidation of nation-states, and other ethno-cultural communities began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for their own cultural and political autonomy.[475] This nationalism became important to peoples across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.[476] The first wave of democratization occurred between 1828 and 1926, during which democratic institutions were established in 33 countries worldwide.[477] Most of the world abolished slavery and serfdom in the 19th century.[478] Over several decades, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing throughout the 20th,[479] in many countries the women's suffrage movement won women the right to vote,[480] and women began to enjoy greater access to education and to professions beyond domestic employment.[481]
First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
In response to the encroachment by European powers, several countries undertook programs of industrialization and political reform along Western lines.[482] The Meiji Restoration in Japan was successful and led to the establishment of a colonial empire, while the tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire did little to slow the Ottoman decline.[483] China achieved some success with its Self-Strengthening Movement, but was devastated by the Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war, which killed 20–30 million people between 1850 and 1864.[484]
The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power.[490] Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan.[491] As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independent nation states.[492]
This transformation was catalyzed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. World War I was a global conflict from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies, led by France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, and the Central Powers, led by Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. It had an estimated death toll ranging from 10 to 22.5 million and resulted in the collapse of four empires – the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires.[493] Its new emphasis on industrial technology had made traditional military tactics obsolete.[494] The Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides saw the systematic destruction, mass murder, and expulsion of those populations in the Ottoman Empire.[495] From 1918 to 1920, the Spanish flu caused the deaths of at least 25 million people.[496]
In the war's aftermath a League of Nations was formed in the hope of averting future international conflicts;[497] and powerful ideologies rose to prominence. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state,[498] while the 1920s and 1930s saw fascist political parties gain control in Italy and Germany.[499][x]
Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II.[501] In that war, the vast majority of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The leading Axis powers were Germany, Japan, and Italy;[502] while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.[503]
World War II had opened the way for the advance of communism into Eastern and Central Europe, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba.[513] To contain this advance, the United States established a global network of alliances.[514] The largest, NATO, was established in 1949 and eventually grew to include 32 member states.[515] In response, in 1955 the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies formed the Warsaw Pact mutual-defense treaty.[516]
The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the primary global powers in the aftermath of World War II.[517] Both nations harbored deep suspicions and fears about the global spread of the other's political-economic system — capitalism for the United States and communism for the Soviet Union.[518] This mutual distrust sparked the Cold War, a 45-year stand-off and arms race between the two nations and their allies.[519]
Cold War preparations to deter or fight a third world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such as jet aircraft,[524]rocketry,[525] and computers.[526] In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel;[524]artificial satellites with innumerable applications,[527] including GPS;[528] and the Internet,[527] which in the 1990s began to gain traction as a form of communication.[529] These inventions revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.[530]
These technical innovations had far-reaching effects.[539] During the 20th century the world's population quadrupled to six billion, while world economic output increased by a factor of 20.[540] The rate of population growth started to decline toward the end of the 20th century, in part because of increased awareness of family planning and better access to contraceptives.[541] Parts of the world now have sub-replacement fertility rates.[542]Public health measures and advances in medical science contributed to a sharp increase in global life expectancy at birth from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.[543][y] In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than one dollar a day, while in 2001 only about 20% did.[545] At the same time, economic inequality increased both within individual countries and between rich and poor countries.[546] The importance of public education had already begun to increase in the 18th and 19th centuries[z] but it was not until the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century that compulsory free education was provided to most children worldwide.[548][aa]
In China, the Maoist government implemented industrialization and collectivization policies as part of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), leading to the starvation deaths (1959–1961) of 30–40million people.[550] After these policies were rescinded, China entered a period of economic liberalization and rapid growth, with the economy expanding by 6.6% per year from 1978 to 2003.[551]
Postcolonial states in Africa struggled to grow their economies, facing structural barriers such as reliance on the export of commodities rather than manufactured goods.[553] Sub-Saharan Africa was the world region hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the late 20th century.[554] Moreover, Africa experienced high levels of violence, as in the Second Congo War (1998–2003), the deadliest conflict since World War II.[555]
The early 21st century was marked by growing economic globalization and integration,[559] which brought both benefits and risks to interlinked economies, as exemplified by the Great Recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s.[560] Communications expanded, with smartphones and social media becoming ubiquitous worldwide by the mid-2010s. By the early 2020s, artificial intelligence systems improved to the point of outperforming humans at many circumscribed tasks.[561]
The influence of religion continued to decline in many Western countries, while some parts of the Muslim world saw the rise of fundamentalist movements.[562] In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted global trading, caused recessions in the global economy, and spurred cultural paradigm shifts.[563]
The study of human history has a long tradition and early precursors were already practiced in the ancient period as attempts to provide comprehensive accounts of the history of the world.[ab] Most research before the 20th century focused on histories of individual communities and societies after the prehistoric period. This changed in the late 20th century, when attempts to integrate the diverse narratives into a common context reaching back to the emergence of the first humans became a central research topic.[567] This transition to a widened perspective was accompanied by questioning Eurocentrism and the Western-focused perspective that had previously dominated academic history.[568]
Like in other historical disciplines, the methodology of analyzing textual sources to construct narratives and interpretations of past events plays a central role in the study of human history. The scope of its topic poses the unique challenge of synthesizing a coherent and comprehensive narrative spanning different cultures, regions, and time periods while taking diverse individual perspectives into account. This is also reflected in its interdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from fields belonging to the humanities and the social, biological, and physical sciences, such as other historical disciplines, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, genetics, paleontology, and geology. The interdisciplinary approach is of particular importance to the study of human history before the invention of writing.[569]
Periodization
To provide an accessible overview, historians divide human history into different periods organized around key themes, events, or developments that have shaped human societies over time. The number of periods and their time frames depend on the chosen topics, and the transitions between periods are often more fluid than static periodization schemes suggest.[570]
A traditionally influential periodization in European scholarship distinguishes between the ancient, medieval, and modern periods[571] organized around historical events responsible for major shifts in political, economic, and cultural structures to mark the transitions between the periods: first the fall of the Western Roman Empire and later the emergence of the Renaissance.[572] Another periodization divides human history into three periods based on the way humans engage with nature to produce goods. The first transition happened with the emergence of agriculture and husbandry to replace hunting and gathering as the main means of food production. The Industrial Revolution constitutes the second transition.[573]A further approach uses the relations between societies to divide the history of the world into the periods of Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE, and Western dominance afterwards.[574] The invention of writing is often used to demark prehistory from the ancient period while another approach divides early history based on the type of tools used in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.[575] Historians focusing on religion and culture identify the Axial Age as a key turning point that laid the spiritual and philosophical foundations of many of the world's major civilizations. Some historians draw on elements from different approaches to arrive at a more nuanced periodization.[576]
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References
Explanatory notes
↑ This date comes from the 2015 discovery of stone tools at the Lomekwi site in Kenya.[3] Some paleontologists propose an earlier date of 3.39million years ago based on bones found with butchery marks on them in Dikika, Ethiopia,[4] while others dispute both the Dikika and Lomekwi findings.[5]
↑ the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster
↑ Or perhaps earlier; the 2018 discovery of stone tools from 2.1million years ago in Shangchen, China predates the earliest known H. erectus fossils.[12]
↑ Some authors suggest a later date at around 200,000 years ago.[19]
↑ These dates come from a 2018 study of an upper jawbone from Misliya Cave, Israel.[29] Researchers studying a fossil skull from Apidima Cave, Greece in 2019 proposed an earlier date of 210,000 years ago.[30] The Apidima Cave study has been challenged by other scholars.[31]
↑ Other scholars argue in favor of a northern dispersal of humans through Central Asia into China, or a multiple dispersal model with several different routes of migration.[33]
↑ This is the traditional date for the founding of the Xia dynasty and has not been confirmed by archaeology.[69] Chinese civilization had its origins in the earlier Yangshao and Longshan cultures (4000–2000 BCE),[70] but the Shang is the first dynasty that can be archeologically verified (1750 BCE).[71]
↑ Various forms of proto-writing existed earlier but they did not constitute fully developed writing system.[85]
↑ The Vedas contain the earliest references to India's caste system, which divided society into four hereditary classes: priests, warriors, farmers and traders, and laborers.[104]
↑ The exact dates are disputed and some periodizations use 1450 as the end point.[199]
↑ Goguryeo was called Taebong at that time and eventually named Goryeo.
↑ They traveled the open ocean in double-hulled canoes up to 37 meters (121ft) long, each canoe carrying as many as 50 people and their livestock.[350]
↑ The time span varies depending on the type of history studied: literary studies can define it as short as about 1500–1700 while some general historians extend its span from 1300–1800.[364]
↑ Some scholars date the period later, to the 15th and 16th centuries.[386]
↑ The Chinese invented movable type centuries earlier, but it was better suited to the alphabetical writing systems of European languages.[394]
↑ They are known as haijin in China and sakoku in Japan.
↑ The Aztec civilization is an exception, having established compulsory formal education for children as early as the 14th century.[547]
↑ According to one estimate, about 90% of the global population aged 15–64 was uneducated in 1870. This number had dropped to 10% by 2010.[549]
↑ Some historian use the terms world history and global history to refer to all these attempts while others understand world history and global history in a more narrow sense as one among several competing approaches to study the development of the world on a global scale.[566]
Bulliet et al. 2015a, p.1, "Human beings evolved over several million years from primates in Africa."
Christian 2011, p.150, "But it turned out that humans and chimps differed from each other only by about 10 percent as much as the differences between major groups of mammals, which suggested that they had diverged from each other approximately 5 to 7 million years ago."
Dunbar 2016, p.8, "Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the [Homo-Pan] LCA are referred to as hominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively."
Dunbar 2016, pp.8, 10, "What has come to define our lineage – bipedalism – was adopted early on after we parted company with the chimpanzees, presumably in order to facilitate travel on the ground in more open habitats where large forest trees were less common....The australopithecines did not differ from the modern chimpanzees in terms of brain size."
Stutz 2018, pp.1–9, "The Paleolithic era encompasses the bulk of the human archaeological record. Its onset is defined by the oldest known stone tools, now dated to 3.3 Ma, found at the Lomekwi site in Kenya."
↑ Strait 2010, p.341, "However, Homo is almost certainly descended from an australopith ancestor, so at least one or some australopiths belong directly to the human lineage."
↑ Spoor et al. 2015, pp.83–86, "The latter is morphologically more derived than OH 7 but 500,000 years older, suggesting that the H. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo."
↑ Bulliet et al. 2015a, p.5, "What most distinguished Homo habilis from the australopithecines was a brain that was nearly 50 percent larger."
↑ Zhu et al. 2018, "Fourth, and most importantly, the oldest artefact age of approximately 2.12 Ma at Shangchen implies that hominins had left Africa before the date suggested by the earliest evidence from Dmanisi (about 1.85 Ma). This makes it necessary to reconsider the timing of initial dispersal of early hominins in the Old World."
Gowlett 2016, p.20150164, "We know that burning evidence occurs on numbers of archaeological sites from about 1.5 Ma onwards (there is evidence of actual hearths from around 0.7 to 0.4 Ma); that more elaborate technologies existed from around half a million years ago, and that these came to employ adhesives that require preparation by fire."
Christian 2015, p.316, "Dispersal over an unprecedented swath of the globe...coincided with an Ice Age that...spread ice in the northern hemisphere as far south as the present lower courses of the Missouri and Ohio rivers in North America and deep into what are now the British Isles. Ice covered what is today Scandinavia. Most of the rest of what is now Europe was tundra or taiga. In central Eurasia, tundra reached almost to the present latitudes of the Black Sea. Steppe licked the shores of the Mediterranean. In the New World, tundra and taiga extended to where Virginia is today."
↑ Christian 2015, p.400, "In any case, by the end of the era of climatic fluctuation, humans occupied almost all the habitats their descendants occupy today, with the exception of relatively remote parts of the Pacific, accessible only by high-seas navigation and unsettled, as far as we know, for many millennia more."
↑ Barker & Goucher 2015, pp.325, 336, "More recent improvements in archaeobotanical recovery have indicated that rice domestication was underway durin...the Hemudu cultural phase in the lower Yangtze valley...This points to a start of cultivation in this region of c. 10,000–9,000 years ago; in the middle Yangtze valley it could have begun someone earlier but may represent a parallel process to the lower Yangtze...it has been suggested on the basis of phytolith and starch residue evidence that broomcorn and foxtail millet were already in use in northern China prior to 7000 BCE. Nonetheless, the most abundant macrofossil evidence of broomcorn and foxtail millet is found in association with the early Neolithic sites post-7000 BCE."
↑ Barker & Goucher 2015, p.518, "Arrowroot was the earliest domesticate [in Panama], dating to 7800 BC at the Cueva de los Vampiros site and 5800 BCE at Aguadulce...Plant domestication began before 8500 BCE in southwest coastal Ecuador. Squash phytoliths were recovered from terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at Vegas sites. Phytoliths recovered from the earliest levels are from wild squash, with domesticated size squash phytoliths directly dated to 9840–8555 BCE."
Graeber & Wengrow 2021"Seen this way, the 'origins of farming' start to look less like an economic transition and more like a media revolution, which was also a social revolution, encompassing everything from horticulture to architecture, mathematics to thermodynamics, and from religion to the remodelling of gender roles. And while we can't know exactly who was doing what in this brave new world, it's abundantly clear that women's work and knowledge were central to its creation; that the whole process was a fairly leisurely, even playful one, not forced by any environmental catastrophe or demographic tipping point and unmarked by major violent conflict. What's more, it was all carried out in ways that made radical inequality an extremely unlikely outcome"
↑ Lewin 2009, p.247, "The date of 12,000 years before present (BP) is usually given as the beginning of what has been called the Agricultural (or Neolithic) Revolution...The tremendous changes wrought during the Neolithic can be seen as a prelude to the emergence of cities and city states and, of course, to a further rise in population."
↑ Graeber & Wengrow 2021, p.362, "There is no doubt that, in most of the areas that saw the rise of cities, powerful kingdoms and empires also eventually emerged."
Kulke & Rothermund 1990, pp.61, 71, "At any rate Chandragupta seems to have usurped the throne of Magadha in 320 BC...the last ruler of the Maurya dynasty, Brihadratha, was assassinated by his general, Pushyamitra Shunga, during a parade of his troops in the year 185 BC."
↑ Benjamin 2015, p.134, "But the impression that no significant technological advances occurred in ancient civilization is misleading. In fact, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE, the Mediterranean world witnessed a series of innovations that would influence the development of civilization."
↑ Headrick 2009, p.59, "Toe stirrups were known in India in the second century BCE, and foot stirrups appeared in northern Afghanistan in the first century CE."
↑ Kent 2020, p.6, "Ancient societies ruled themselves according to a system known as patriarchy, or the rule of the father, in which male heads of households and states claimed nearly absolute power over women."
↑ Hourani 1991, pp.5, 11, "In the early seventh century a religious movement appeared on the margins of the great empires, those of the Byzantines and Sasanians, which dominated the western half of the world....The Byzantine and Sasanian empires were engaged in long wars, which lasted with intervals from 540 to 629."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.355, "Despite the political infighting and progressively unstable political situation, Shah Rukh in Herat and Ulugh Beg in Samarkand fostered a cultural and artistic renaissance in the Timurid domains."
Hayas 1953, p.2, "...that certain distinctive features of our Western civilization—the civilization of western Europe and of America—have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."
Woods & Canizares 2012, p.1, "Western civilization owes far more to Catholic Church than most people—Catholic included—often realize. The Church in fact built Western civilization."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.60, "Then, in the 1340s, Mongol armies attacked the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimean region, and from that point on the infection spread into the Mediterranean, and then north into Europe, reaching Scandinavia within two years, and east and south into the Muslim societies of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa."
↑ Kropacek, Lubos (1984). "Nubia from the late 12th century to the Funj conquest in the early 15th century". General History of Africa: Volume 4. UNESCO.
↑ Tadesse, Tamrat (1984). "The Horn of Africa: The Solomonids in Ethiopia and the states of the Horn of Africa". General History of Africa: Volume 4. UNESCO.
1 2 Thornton, John K., ed. (2020). "The Development of States in West Central Africa to 1540". A History of West Central Africa to 1850. New Approaches to African History. Cambridge University Press. pp.16–55. ISBN978-1-107-56593-7. Retrieved 21 September 2024.
↑ Vansina, Jan (1984). "Equatorial Africa and Angola: Migrations and the emergence of the first states". General History of Africa: Volume 4. UNESCO.
↑ Benjamin 2015, p.426, "After China was reunified in 589 by the Sui dynasty (581–618) and suddenly became a looming regional superpower, Silla began exploring even more active ties with China."
Evans et al. 2007, p.14279, "The 'boundary' of the urban complex of Angkor, as it can be loosely defined from the infrastructural network, encloses ~900–1,000 km2 compared with the ~100–150 km2 of Tikal, the next largest preindustrial low-density city for which we have an overall survey. Mirador, a Pre-Classic Maya urban complex, and Calakmul, a Classic site near Tikal, may be more extensive, but as yet we do not have comprehensive overall surveys for these sites; it is nonetheless clear that no site in the Maya world approaches Angkor in terms of extent."
↑ Coedès 1968, p.225, "However that may be, various texts agree that the solemn coronation of Fa Ngum, which marks the founding of the kingdom of Lan Chang, took place in 1353; this date has most probably been transmitted correctly."
↑ Lieberman 2003, p.125, "In the heart of the dry zone, near the juncture of the Irrawaddy with the famed granary of Kyaukse, Ava was founded in 1365."
Ricklefs 2001, p.4, "The first evidence of Indonesian Muslims concerns the northern part of Sumatra. In the graveyard of Lamreh is found the gravestone of Sultan Suleiman bin Abdullah bin al-Basir, who died in AH 608/AD 1211. This is the first evidence of the existence of an Islamic kingdom in Indonesia."
Flenley & Bahn 2003, p.109, "From the islanders' testimony and other Polynesian ethnography it is virtually certain that the statues represented high-ranking ancestors, often served as their funerary monument, and kept their memory alive–like the simple upright slabs in front of platforms in the Society Islands, which represented clan ancestors, or the statues dominating the terraces of sanctuaries in the Marquesas, which were famous old chiefs or priests."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.192, "The Italian city-states developed business procedures that have been described as early capitalism, although this was already business as usual in Asian port-cities such as Cambay, Calicut and Zayton."
↑ Christian 2011, p.383, "Because such crops flourished where more familiar staples grew less well, American crops effectively increased the area under cultivation and thereby made possible population growth in many parts of Afro-Eurasia from the 16th century onward."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.469, "Having determined to build a distinctive Iranian, Shi'a identity for their empire, the Safavids forced the conversion of all Muslims in their territory to Shi'ism."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.456, "In the Middle East, Central Asia and India, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires adopted firearms so enthusiastically that they are often referred to as 'gunpowder empires.'"
↑ Bulliet et al. 2015b, p.626, "In the region of the Caucasus Mountains, the third area of southward expansion, Russia first took over Christian Georgia (1786), Muslim Azerbaijan (1801), and Christian Armenia (1813) before gobbling up the many small principalities in the heart of the mountains."
↑ Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p.358, "Political and military instability, succession disputes and conflicts with the Türkmen and Uzbeks vitiated these remarkable economic achievements, weakening the Timurids and making them vulnerable to the previously nomadic Uzbeks, who became the dominant force in Central Asia from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century."
↑ Carter & Butt 2005, p.4, "Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."
↑ Phiri, Kings; Kalinga, Owen; Bhila, Hoyini (1992). "The northern Zambezia-Lake Malawi region". General History of Africa: Volume 5. UNESCO Publishing.
Keay 2000, pp.410–11, 420, "This brought the British into potential conflict with Ranjit Singh, a young Sikh leader who had been prominent in repulsing Afghan attacks by Ahmed Shah Abdali's successors and who, since occupying Lahore in 1799, had been pursuing a policy of conquest and alliance that mirrored that of the British...over the next 30 years the Raja of Lahore, comparatively free of British interference, would blossom into the Maharaja of the Panjab, creator of the most formidable non-colonial state in India...Ranjit had by 1830 created a kingdom, nay an 'empire', rated by one visitor 'the most wonderful object in the whole world'."
↑ Yoffee 2015, p.74, "When the Portuguese admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque conquered the sultanate of Melaka (Malacca) on August 24, 1511, he brought under Portuguese control a Southeast Asian polity whose reach stretched across the Malay peninsula."
McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p.430, "That said, and ever since the initial Eastern seaboard settler wars against the Tsenacommacahs and Pequots in the 1620s and early 1630s, systematic genocidal massacre was a core component of native destruction throughout three centuries of largely 'Anglo' expansion across continental North America."
Blackhawk et al. 2023, p.38, "With these works, a near consensus emerged. By most scholarly definitions and consistent with the UN Convention, these scholars all asserted that genocide against at least some Indigenous peoples had occurred in North America following colonisation, perpetuated first by colonial empires and then by independent nation-states"
Kiernan, Lemos & Taylor 2023, p.622, "These mass killings represent turning points in the history of the Spanish Atlantic conquest and share important characteristics. Each targeted Amerindian communities. Each was entirely or partially planned and executed by European actors, namely Spanish military entrepreneurs under the leadership of friar Nicolás de Ovando, Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado respectively. Each event can be described as a 'genocidal massacre' targeting a specific community because of its membership of a larger group"
Wheeler 1971, p.441, "This view overlooks the fact that, in the forty years since Shelikhov had founded the first permanent settlement on Kodiak Island in 1784, only eight additional settlements had been established, none of which was south of 57° north latitude."
↑ Bulliet et al. 2015b, p.562, "Manchester's rise as a large, industrial city was a result of what historians call the Industrial Revolution, the most profound transformation in human life since the beginnings of agriculture."
↑ Bulliet et al. 2015b, p.563, "The first countries to industrialize grew rich and powerful, facilitating a second great wave of European imperialism in the 19th century."
↑ Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p.206, "The half-century preceding the outbreak of World War I stands out as an era of European economic, political, and cultural dominance never achieved before and impossible to sustain at the end of the war."
↑ McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp.507–508, "Indeed, Japan's China war between 1931 and 1945 exacted the heaviest toll in lives of all colonial wars – between 10 and 30 million Chinese deaths being the best estimates available in the absence of official or authoritative statistics."
↑ Christian 2011, pp.456–457, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was, as Mikhail Gorbachev understood, a failure to compete economically and technologically."
McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p.609, "But the crisis beginning in 2007, with the eddying effects of the subprime lending-induced financial crash, demonstrated how vital the health of the American economy remained for global growth and stability. Events and processes outside the United States continued to affect the internal politics and economics, and vice versa. The United States and the rest of the world were interconnected, and disengagement was impossible."
Kolbert 2023, "[T]he world's phosphorus problem [arising from the element's exorbitant use in agriculture] resembles its carbon-dioxide problem, its plastics problem, its groundwater-use problem, its soil-erosion problem, and its nitrogen problem. The path humanity is on may lead to ruin, but, as of yet, no one has found a workable way back."
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