How to Read a Book

1. How to Read a Book

2. What to Look For as You Read • The main characteristics in the major civilizations • Cross-civilizational patterns of migration, trade and exchange, spread of religion, disease, plant exchange, & cultural interchange within and among major societies—SIMILARITIES • The basic features of agricultural economies • How key aspects of the past & present have been shaped by global forces, e.g., exchange of technology & ideas • Assess continuity and change over time • Common impulses in the human experience

3. What is Global History? A study of the evolution and development of the world’s leading civilizations Major stages in the nature and degree of interactions among different peoples and societies around the globe

4. The Emergence of World History “Not until the 20th century, with an increase in the international contacts and a vastly expanded knowledge of the historical patterns of major societies did a full world history become possible.” 14th Century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun

5. River Valleys as Central • Nile (Egypt) • Tigris-Euphrates (Mesopotamia—the Middle East) • Indus (India) • Yellow (China) Flood waters renewed soil, kept it fertile; drew animal life to the banks; provided means of transporting goods & people

6. What is Civilization? • Cities (versus a nomadic lifestyle) • Well-organized central governments, bureaucracies • Complex religions • Job specialization—specialized occupations • Social classes—differentiated social status • Arts & architecture • Public works (temples, palaces, irrigation systems, roads, bridges, walls) • Writing (tax rolls, business or marriage contracts) • Long distance trading networks Must all these be present for civilization to exist?

7. Civilization • “Most humans have always shown a tendency to operate in groups that provide a framework for economic activities, governance, and cultural forms-beliefs and artistic styles” • Civilizations “generate surpluses beyond survival needs” • Civilizations give “human groups the capacity to fundamentally reshape their environments and to dominate most other living creatures” • “A genuinely global definition of what it means to be civilized should focus on underlying patterns of social development that are common to complex societies throughout history”

8. The Problem of Ethnocentrism • “The tendency to judge other peoples’ cultural forms solely on the basis of how much they resemble one’s own” • This requires an international approach on our part • “In the West, world history depended on a growing realization that the world could not be understood simply as a mirror reflecting the West’s greater glory or a stage for Western-dominated power politics”—LeRoy don’t want the ball, Coach!”

9. The Criteria for Determining what Constitutes a “Period” in History • A geographic rebalancing among major civilization areas—changing boundaries • An increase in the intensity and extent of interaction across civilizations • The emergence of new and roughly parallel developments in most, if not all, of these major civilizations

10. Periodization of World History Period #1 World history developments before 1000 C.E.—“Pre-history” & Emergence of Early Regional Civilizations C. E. A. D. = B. C. E. = B. C.

11. Period #2 The Classical Period—“a new capacity to integrate larger regions and diverse groups of people through overarching cultural political systems 1000 B.C. E – 500 C. E.

12. Period #3 The “Postclassical Era”—”emergence of new commercial and cultural linkages that brought most civilizations into contact with one another and with nomadic groups; the decline of the great classical empires, the rise of new civilizational centers, and the emergence of a network of world contacts (especially commercial), including the spread of major religious systems

13. Period #4 The Shrinking World---1450-1750 The rise of the West, the intensification to new levels of global contacts, the growth of trade, and the formation of new empires.

14. Period #5 Industrialization & Western Global Hegemony, 1750-1914 Industrialization of Europe and European Imperial expansion; increase & intensification of commercial interchange, technoiogical innovations, & cultural contacts

15. Period #6 20th Century in World History—Are we at a crossroads? Are new global patterns on the horizon? The retreat of Western Imperialism; the rise of new political systems like communism; the surge of the U. S. & U.S.S.R.; a host of economic innovations and inventions

16. Themes • Commonalities among societies, e.g., impact of technological change on environment, social structure, gender equity • Contacts / interplay between civilizations • Tensions between established traditions and forces of change brought by trade, migration • What role did individuals play—human agency as part of world-historical causation • Changing patterns of inequality • Nomads and international connections

18. Structure & Organization of the Book • “Part Introductions”—identifies fundamental new characteristics of parallel or comparable developments and regional or international exchange that define each period—Key Themes • “Chapter Introductions”—identifies key themes and analytical issues: chief strengths, causes for deterioration, decline, collapse • “Timelines—major “events, countries, in all societies discussed in chapter” • “On the Web”—annotated websites—should help in writing your six weeks essays

19. Happy Reading!