As all teachers of world history survey courses know, it is a difficult subject to teach well. Not only must they continually expand their knowledge of different places and times in the past, but they must also present hundreds or even thousands of?years of the world’s history in one or two quarters, semesters, or terms in a meaningful way. These challenges, moreover, are only magnified by the fact that many teachers recruited to give the course, at both university and secondary levels, lack formal training in world historical methods and scholarship.
In part to mitigate these challenges, a team of scholars and teachers directed by Ross Dunn at San Diego State University created the ‘World history for us all’ programme – a free, web-based, model curriculum for world history survey courses that includes overview essays, lesson plans, and images based on up-to-date scholarship in the field of world history (http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu). World history: the big eras is taken directly from this project, as the volume brings together in print the overview essays that introduce the nine ‘big eras’ into which the team have divided the global past. While the overview essays are just the starting point for each ‘big era’ in the web version of ‘World history for us all’, in World history they are meant to stand alone as a very brief ‘interpretive narrative of the human past from the origins of the universe to today’ (p. 1).
This book is not intended to provide exhaustive detail or nuanced interpretations of the world’s past. Rather, it is meant to provide a framework around which the myriad details of world history can begin to fall into place. In so doing, it allows a look at the ‘forest’ of world history without getting bogged down in the many ‘trees’ that seem to so confound teachers and students of the course alike. By stripping the world’s past down into nine chronological eras in only ninety-one pages, World history encourages readers to conceptualize human history in its totality in one reading, rather than to build it piecemeal from thousands of historical details absorbed over long periods of time.
The book itself consists of an introduction, nine chapters that correspond with the nine ‘big eras’ identified in the ‘World history for us all’ curriculum, and an epilogue. All of the chapters, including the introduction and epilogue, are followed by study questions that promote engagement and interpretation rather than simple regurgitation. Another feature common to the nine chapters on the ‘big eras’ is that all content is divided into three broad subsections: humans and the environment, humans and other humans, humans and ideas. This feature allows students to make comparisons and to comprehend massive changes across vast swaths of time.
The introduction offers a self-conscious account of the authors’ convictions about the purposes of world history, the varying scales on which it should be studied, and the ways in which our own historical moment has allowed us to ‘think the world’ as never before (p. 4). In addition, it introduces the geographical terms used throughout the book, since some?– like Afroeurasia and Indo-Mediterranea – may be unfamiliar to readers.
Chapters 1–9 divide the global past into nine ‘big eras’, beginning with the creation of the universe more than thirteen billion years ago and ending at the present. Many of the chronological divisions that mark the ‘big eras’ will be familiar to teachers of world history, and (with the exception of the first two eras) they do not differ markedly from chronological divisions found in a number of world history textbooks, or from the AP world history course guidelines. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the chronological divisions in World history is the choice of starting point. Chapter 1 (which corresponds to big era 1), is called ‘Humans in the universe: 13 billion–200,000 years ago’, and bears the distinct mark of David Christian, one of the authors of the volume and renowned champion of ‘big history’. While such a vast time scale might at first seem extreme, beginning the story of humanity’s past with the very creation of the universe allows?readers to perceive how human development and evolution fit into the widest possible historical context.
Chapter 2, ‘Human beings almost everywhere: 200,000–10,000 years ago’, also reaches further into the past than many typical world history survey courses. This era, however, is critical for exploring the spread of Homo sapiens around the world, emphasizing to readers the mobile character of even the earliest humans. In addition, this chapter seeks to explain some of the common features of early human communities before the advent of farming, including language and the creation of art.
Chronological divisions between eras begin to look more familiar in Chapter 3, ‘Farming and the emergence of complex societies: 10,000–1000 BCE’. The Neolithic, indeed, is where the majority of world history survey courses begin, since many of the complex agricultural societies that developed in this period also left significant material and even written evidence. Chapter 4, ‘Expanding networks of exchange and encounter: 1200 BCE–500 CE’, explores the faster pace of human integration that marked this period, pointing to the development of ever more cities and ever more complex organizations, the birth and development of world religions, increased agricultural production, increased population growth, and the spread of alphabetic writing. Chapter 5, ‘Patterns of interregional unity: 300–1500 CE’, continues to explore quickening interactions between human communities in terms of the creation of empires, the increased occurrence of warfare, the spread of world religions far beyond their communities of origin, and the development of crucial ideas in science and mathematics. This chapter also notes the high tide of pastoral power in Afroeurasia.
Beginning with Chapter 6, the ‘big eras’ – which up to this point have spanned billions, millions, thousands, or at least many hundreds of years – become shorter and shorter, beginning with 200 years in big era 6 and whittling down to less than half a century by big era 8. This practice is standard in most world history survey courses, and reflects not only our own interest in recent times but also the increased availability of historical sources. Chapter 6, ‘The great global convergence: 1400 to 1800 CE’, charts the historical period that usually marks the beginning of the modern half of world history surveys. Key features of this period include the fact that every region in the world became connected, leading not only to increased cultural and economic exchanges but also to the massive transfer of flora, fauna, and disease between Afroeurasia, the Americas, and the Pacific. Chapter 7, ‘Industrialization and its consequences: 1750–1914 CE’, introduces the concept of ‘autocatalytic change’, in which one change creates the need for other changes (p. 53). Indeed, by this era the pace of human interaction had increased so dramatically that changes in one area could precipitate changes in a wide field of interrelated areas. The authors argue that these interrelated areas included transformations in the use of energy, massive population growth, industrial transformation, revolutions in communication and transport, democratic revolutions, and the rise of new colonial empires.
Chapter 8, ‘A half-century of crisis: 1900–45’, explores a period of massive destabilization in the by now deeply integrated and interrelated world system, including the rise of colonial nationalism, the development of fascism and communism, and the outbreak of two world wars. Chapter 9, ‘Paradoxes of global acceleration: 1945–present’, does not provide a narrative per se, because the authors argue that we do not yet know where this era is going or when it will end. Instead, the chapter lists a variety of trends that have marked the last sixty-five years, paying special attention to the massive and growing scale of environmental damage that humans have inflicted on the planet, especially since the advent of industrialization.
The book ends not with a conclusion but with an epilogue that prompts students to think about the future. While some scholars and teachers believe that historians have no business predicting the future, the authors insist that doing so will help readers think about how large trends of the past might affect future generations, and about our place within the larger universe over the short, medium, and very long term.
Of course, any book this ambitious and yet this brief is bound to have some drawbacks. Most obviously, even though it is not intended to be detailed, sometimes – especially in ‘big eras’ 7–9 – it is so brief and limited in its coverage as to be frustrating. In addition, a surprising omission was the lack of a ‘Further reading’ section for each of the chapters. This feature would be of great use to teachers and students alike, since it would allow them to explore further the latest scholarship on their own. Despite these issues, World history is an ideal tool for conceptualizing the history of the world in one brief reading. It should be especially effective as a training device for teachers striving to make meaning out of the many details of world history, and as beginning reading for students in the subject.
