World Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === World history === {{main|World history (field)}} World history studies the world from a historical perspective. Unlike other approaches to history, it employs a global viewpoint. It deals less with individual nations and civilizations, which it usually approaches at a high level of abstraction.<ref name="Bentley">{{cite web |last1=Bentley |first1=Jerry H. |editor1-first=Jerry H |editor1-last=Bentley |title=The Task of World History |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199235810.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199235810-e-1 |website=The Oxford Handbook of World History |access-date=14 April 2021 |language=en |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199235810.001.0001 |date=31 March 2011|isbn=9780199235810 }}</ref> Instead, it concentrates on wider regions and zones of interaction, often interested in how people, goods and ideas move from one region to another.<ref>{{cite web |title=What Is World History? |url=https://www.thewha.org/about/what-is-world-history/ |publisher=World History Association |access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref> It includes comparisons of different societies and civilizations as well as considering wide-ranging developments with a long-term global impact like the process of industrialization.<ref name="Bentley"/> Contemporary world history is dominated by three main research paradigms determining the periodization into different epochs.<ref name="Cajani">{{cite book |last1=Cajani |first1=Luigi |editor1-first=Jerry H |editor1-last=Bentley |title=The Oxford Handbook of World History |date=2011 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199235810.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199235810-e-4 |language=en |chapter=Periodization|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199235810.013.0004 }}</ref> One is based on productive relations between humans and nature. The two most important changes in history in this respect were the introduction of agriculture and husbandry concerning the production of food, which started around 10,000 to 8,000 BCE and is sometimes termed the [[Neolithic Revolution]], and the [[Industrial Revolution]], which started around 1760 CE and involved the transition from manual to industrial manufacturing.<ref>{{cite book |author=Graeme Barker |title=The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fkifXu2gx4YC |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-955995-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Industrial Revolution |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=14 April 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Cajani"/> Another paradigm, focusing on culture and religion instead, is based on [[Karl Jaspers]]' theories about the [[Axial Age]], a time in which various new forms of religious and philosophical thoughts appeared in several separate parts of the world around the time between 800 and 200 BCE.<ref name="Cajani"/> A third periodization is based on the relations between civilizations and societies. According to this paradigm, history can be divided into three periods in relation to the dominant region in the world: Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE and Western dominance since 1500 CE.<ref name="Cajani"/> [[Big history]] employs an even wider framework than world history by putting human history into the context of the history of the universe as a whole. It starts with the [[Big Bang]] and traces the formation of galaxies, the [[Solar System]], the Earth, its geological eras, the evolution of life and humans until the present day.<ref name="Cajani"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page