The following article by Peter N. Stearns is intended as a quick review of world history from 2.5 million years ago. The information in the article should provide a good base to build on for learning world history. The foundational information presented by Stearns provides background support for the building of knowledge of world history and religion in the early civilizations.

A World History Skeleton

Peter N. Stearns

This chapter is an introductory guide to world history, a summary of a standard framework—a textbook in a few pages. Emphases are threefold: first, most obviously, since history is a time-based discipline, what are the definitions of key time periods and what are the main features of each? Second, within each period (different regions move into different positions depending on timeframe) what are the geographical highlights? And third (some periods feature change in certain topics—providing the main focus—but substantial continuities in others) what are the key subjects in each period? The chapter introduces the more analytical focus explored in later chapters, but it can also be used as a highlights-in-advance approach to any of the large textbooks that will expand on each of the points here in greater detail. It’s the woods, for this purpose, in advance of the trees.

The Early Stages: 2.5 Million BCE to 10,000 BCE

All comprehensive world histories start well before what historians used to call the advent of recorded history, i.e. the arrival of writing. The early human story is also enlivened by all sorts of recent new discoveries, based on fossil finds in Africa and on improved methods of carbon testing for dates and also genetic analysis. From the advent of human-like species to the timing of human migration from Asia to North America, novel findings have pushed back what had been regarded as standard dates and opened some exciting debates about the long period of early human history and about the relationship of human evolution to that of other primates.

For world history purposes, several points are central. First, the human species went through complex and lengthy evolutionary development, from its first appearance two and half million years ago, or perhaps even longer, in East Africa. Various distinct species not only emerged but in some cases migrated to other areas. The arrival of the species to which all contemporary people belong, Homo sapiens sapiens, was a late result of this long process. Gradually, through superior adaptability—particularly for changing conditions in hunting animals, where short bursts of speed became a priority; through outright warfare; and through intermarriage, Homo sapiens sapiens became the only human species around, upwards of 120,000 years ago. Crucial genetic changes, including the capacity for speech and language, accompanied this final (to date) major evolutionary process.

Technology and Migration

Early humans also generated at least two other basic achievements. First, as humans operated within a hunting-and-gathering economy, where men hunted and women gathered nuts, seeds and berries, they gradually became increasingly skillful tool-users. Humans are not the only species to find objects in nature that they can use as tools and weapons, but they ultimately gained the ability not only to find but to manufacture tools, shaping bone, wood and stone to serve more precise purposes, particularly for hunting and fishing (including ultimately manufacturing early boats). The advent of the Neolithic, or new Stone Age period about 11,000 years ago, capped this process of tool improvement within the confines of stone-age technology.

The second big news was migration, which several human species had accomplished but which Homo sapiens sapiens took up about 70,000 years ago. The reasons for migration were simple: hunting and gathering groups, usually about 70–80 strong, need a lot of space, on average over 2 square miles per person. Any small population increase forces some members of the group to push out into new territory, or there will not be enough food. Most important was the surge of groups from Africa across the Red Sea to the Middle East, from which some bands headed north and west, into the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe, and another stream ultimately reached eastern Asia. From Asia also, groups ultimately ventured to the islands of Southeast Asia and to Australia—at a point at which the Southeast Asian land mass extended much farther southward than is the case today. And, by 25,000 BCE or perhaps earlier (there is debate about this), other Asian groups crossed from Siberia across what was then a land link to present-day Alaska, from which some moved quickly southward, reaching other parts of both North and South America. By 10,000 BCE a small global human population—about 10 million people in all—inhabited virtually all the areas where people now live. This dispersion reflects the adaptability of the human species. It also produced increasing differentiation, though not at the basic genetic level (which means, the different groups of humans could still interbreed) but rather in languages and cultural practices.

In sum: for the long early periods of human history, look for: the main phases of the evolutionary process but particularly the ultimate characteristics of Homo sapiens sapiens; grasp the nature and the social implications of the hunting and gathering economy; look for the major phases of tool use and particularly the improvements attained by the time of the Neolithic period. And, perhaps above all, register on the nature, timing and implications of human migration.

Main Periods in World History: One Sketch

Advent of Agriculture

The early periods of human history were transformed by the arrival of agriculture, or what is sometimes called the Neolithic Revolution. This is the first sweeping change in the basic context for human history, and world historians usually pay a great deal of attention to it. Responding to improved tool use and, probably, reductions in the big game available for hunting, people (surely inspired by imaginative women, who had been the seed-handlers for the species) began deliberately planting grains. They also domesticated a wider range of animals (the dog had been the first domestication achievement, of obvious assistance in hunting), including cows, horses, sheep and pigs.

The advent of agriculture is both historically tricky, and fundamentally important. The tricky aspects are, first, that agriculture did not arise tidily in all areas at the same time. Furthermore, some regions only adopted agriculture quite recently, long relying on different economic systems which, while less significant than agriculture, also deserve attention. Finally, even when agriculture was established and began to spread, the process of dissemination was surprisingly slow.

 

Dates and Dissemination

The first instance of agriculture emerged in the Black Sea region in the northern Middle East, around 9000–8000 BCE, and was based on the cultivation of barley, oats and wheat. From this site, agriculture would gradually spread to other parts of the Middle East, to India, to northern Africa (and possibly all of Africa) and to Europe. But agriculture was separately invented in at least two other places: Southeast Asia, based on rice cultivation, around 7000 BCE; and Central America, based on corn, around 5000 BCE, with dissemination from both of these centers. There may have been other separate inventions, for example in sub-Saharan Africa. We don’t know for sure in some cases if the arrival of agriculture reflects dissemination or new discovery.

Even when agriculture was established, it spread only gradually. It took thousands of years for agriculture to reach key parts of Europe, for example. The slowness of diffusion had two causes. First, contacts among peoples were halting, particularly outside individual regions: news of major developments did not travel fast. But second, there were lots of reasons not to appreciate agriculture. Compared to hunting and gathering agriculture required more hours of work (particularly from men); it challenged male hunting prowess; it led to other problems, such as a new incidence of epidemic diseases once groups of people began to settle and concentrate rather than moving around. It was, in sum, a big change, and many groups long resisted even when they knew of the possibility. It is historically and philosophically important to realize that agriculture was not pure gain but, like most major shifts in human history, an interesting mixture of plusses and minuses.

Finally, partly because of climate and soil conditions, a number of regions did not adopt agriculture at all until much more recent times. Huge areas, including much of North America, persisted in hunting and gathering, though this was sometimes spiced by a bit of seasonal agriculture. Other major human groups moved to a nomadic herding economy, rather than agriculture, relying on domesticated animals (horses, cattle, camels) rather than farming. Nomadic groups never developed the population levels of successful agricultural regions. But their control over key regions and their ability to contact agricultural centers through trade, migration and invasion give them great importance in world history until at least 500 years ago. The most important nomadic region was central Asia, but nomadic tribesmen in the Middle East and parts of sub-Saharan Africa also deserve attention; the key herding regions developed in and around a great arid zone that stretches from the Sahara desert in the West to central Asia and western China in the east.

The Neolithic revolution, then, involves a somewhat scattered chronology, a surprisingly slow and uneven spread, and the emergence of important alternatives.

It was, nevertheless, a fundamental development in world history. Even with its drawbacks, like greater vulnerability to contagious disease, it produced larger food supplies than hunting and gathering could, and so permitted expansions in the human population. Agriculture allowed families to have more children and, even with characteristically high infant death rates, more children surviving to adulthood. Its service in expanding the human species was ultimately irresistible to many regions. Human population began to grow, doubling every 1600 years to reach a level, worldwide, of 120 million by 1000 BCE.

Nature of Agricultural Societies

This means in turn that, several thousand years ago depending on region, a new economic system took shape that would last until about 300 years ago (and that still predominates in many places). It’s vital to realize that most of textbook world history coverage involves agricultural societies, usually with a fairly short section on the experience of the human species before agriculture and a longer section on industrial, or post-agricultural, changes. World historians can easily demonstrate that within the framework of agriculture, important changes and important variations would occur. Some agricultural societies, for example, never generated many significant cities, whereas others produced a lively urban economy and culture. So there is every reason to devote substantial attention to the ways different agricultural regions changed and diverged. But still, the fact that they were agricultural commands attention.

For agricultural societies shared several key characteristics, no matter where they cropped up and no matter how much they changed. Most agricultural societies quickly developed more permanent settlements, usually in peasant villages. This allowed communities to clear land; dig wells; and sometimes set up irrigation systems; but also to develop connections that only a settled existence could allow. All agricultural societies focused primary attention on growing food; most generated a bit of surplus, but it was limited. Few agricultural societies could ever free up more than about 20% of the population for nonagricultural pursuits, including urban life, and many kept even more on the land. Limited surplus also helps explain why so many agricultural societies generated a well-defined, but rather small, elite of wealth and power. Agricultural societies also emphasized marked disparities between men and women, in patriarchal systems that gave men preeminent power. Historians have discussed why this occurred, in contrast to hunting and gathering societies where women’s economic importance assured them a more prominent role and voice. Because agricultural societies increased the birth rate, more of women’s time was taken up in pregnancy and early child care. In most (though not all) cases, men took primary responsibility for bringing in the major crops, assisted by children and, in peak season, by their wives. Women’s day-to-day work was also vital, in caring for gardens and animals around the house, but men overmatched them and presumably claimed disproportion power in consequence. Additionally, agriculture redefined childhood, seeing children primarily as a source of family labor. This explains why an increase in birth rate was vital, but also explains why agricultural societies emphasized the importance of obedience and discipline as primary qualities for children.

A final note: all agricultural societies generated some concept of a week (though they differed widely on how many days it had), the only major time unit that is invented entirely by humans, with no relationship to any natural process. Presumably weeks were desirable to provide a leisure day, amid intense work, and to permit time for some trading activities. Often, a period for spiritual activity was designated as part of the weekly cycle, instead of simply leisure time per se.

Despite a common foundation, agricultural societies varied greatly, even in the specific interpretation of features like patriarchalism. But the common features and constraints must be factored in for any comparison, for there were limits to variation as well.

Civilization

Several thousand years after the arrival of agriculture, some human societies began to change and, in many ways, complicate their organizational structure. The result—the more complex structure—is what many world historians mean when they talk about the advent of civilization. Compared to other kinds of agricultural societies, civilizations had more surplus production, beyond what was needed for subsistence. They could on this basis afford more occupational specialties, from government personnel to skilled craftspeople. They also, typically, displayed more inequality than non-civilizations did. Beyond this, civilizations normally had more elaborate cities, and a clearer urban culture, than non-civilizations did, where if there were cities at all they were usually small and scattered. More cities also meant more need for trade, to provide food and the exchanges necessary for food. Civilizations had formal governments and at least small bureaucracies, rather than the less formal leadership present in simpler societies. They were societies with states, rather than “stateless”. Most civilizations, finally, had writing, which helped government bureaucracies; which helped trade, through better and more standard record-keeping; and which encouraged fuller retention of knowledge than purely oral transmission could.

Locations

The first civilization emerged in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley—the region often called Mesopotamia—around 3500 BCE. It was preceded by some important technological improvements with the agricultural economy, including the wheel, the use of metal (bronze, an alloy of copper and tin) for tools and weapons, and of course the invention of the first writing system. The Sumerian people introduced their cuneiform writing style, and then the first known organized government on the heels of these key developments. Early civilizations emerged in several other centers soon thereafter: in Egypt; in the Indus river valley of present-day Pakistan; and, a bit later, in northern China along the Yellow River. All four of these early civilizations operated around complex irrigation systems along major rivers. Irrigation required particularly elaborate organization and legal arrangements, lest one group take all the water and deprive everyone else; this undoubtedly encouraged the need for more formal government. Irrigation also helped generate particularly productive agriculture, which provided further resources that could be used to help support cities and generate tax revenues for governments. A fifth early civilization case, considerably later, emerged in Central America with the Olmec peoples, but this was not based on irrigation systems primarily.

It is important to note that, for a long time, many agricultural peoples did not generate civilizations. They operated successfully without the civilization apparatus, often with some small cities as trading centers but without writing or formal government. Civilization did tend to spread, partly through conquest, but in some places, like West Africa, “stateless” agricultural economies continued to function until relatively recent centuries. Civilization, in other words, was not a quick or inevitable product of the advent of agriculture.

River Valley Civilizations

In North Africa and in several parts of Asia, the four early civilization centers operated for many centuries. They developed more formal legal structures; the first known law code, the code of the King Hammurabi, came from a later Mesopotamian regime. The centers developed characteristic monuments, the most famous of which emerged in Egypt with the great pyramids. They produced art and literature, some of which has survived to the present. The first known literary work, almost certainly a written record of what had been an oral story, the Gilgamesh, came from Mesopotamia. Some of them generated extensive trade and travel. From Mesopotamia, for example, traders sought sources of tin and also precious material, like the stone lapis lazuli found only in Afghanistan.

For world history, the most important achievement of the river valley civilizations was to generate types of social infrastructure that would not have to be reinvented, including writing and formal laws. Early civilizations introduced money, obviously vital for more extensive trade. Several of them invented further technological improvements, for example in the manufacture of pottery. Several also developed new understandings in mathematics and science, revolving around issues of measurement and calculation of the seasons. So: look at the early civilizations to determine what their durable achievements were, that might outlast their own centuries of operation. Urban development, for example, was one common feature: there were about eight cities in the world with over 30,000 inhabitants by 2250 BCE, but sixteen cities that large by 1250 BCE.

At the same time, each of the river valley civilizations had something of its own character, and together they allow the possibility of comparison. It is also true that we know far more about some of the river valley cases than others—the Indus river valley’s history is particularly challenging, because scholars have not yet translated the writing system. Egypt and Mesopotamia are most commonly compared, with different religions and cultures, different political systems and social structures, even (though both were patriarchal) different approaches to women.

Comparison of internal characteristics leads to two other topics for the early civilization period: the durability of characteristics and regional outreach. We know that the river valley civilizations introduced specific arrangements from which we continue to benefit—like the Mesopotamian notion of measuring in units of 60, which we still use for calculations of the circumference of circles or minutes in an hour. Did they also generate more profound cultural features that still shape particular societies? Some scholars have argued, for example, that Mesopotamia and Egypt developed ideas about the separation of humans from nature that would later shape major religions like Christianity and Islam, and that also differ from characteristic south or east Asian approaches to the same subject. The fact is that we don’t know enough about either early comparisons or later connections to be sure.

We are on firmer ground in noting how the river valley civilizations generated influences that went beyond their initial centers, helping to spread particular civilization systems. Egypt, for example, had trade and cultural influences both on other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, and even more important on the upper Nile river valley, where they helped shape important African societies like Kush and, later, Ethiopia. Equally clearly, a series of aggressive Mesopotamian empires gained control over larger parts of the Middle East, bringing a variety of active contacts as a result. It was not surprising, thus, that a Mesopotamian story about a great flood showed up later in Jewish culture and the Bible. The Indus River civilization traded widely. All of this set the stage for later contacts and expansions.

End of the Early Civilization Period

The early, or river-valley, civilization period drew to a close around 1000 BCE, though there were no sweeping events to mark the change. The period of big empires ended for a time in the Middle East. This allowed some important smaller societies to emerge, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean. The sea-faring Phoenician peoples were one such, forming cities at various points around the Mediterranean Sea. Of even more lasting importance were the Jewish people, whose first definite historical records date from about 1100 BCE and who began to shape the world’s first great monotheistic religion, of importance in its own right and the seedbed of two other later, great religions from that region of the world. Egyptian dynasties continued for a time after 1000 BCE but with declining vitality. The Indus River civilization disappeared entirely—and we don’t know exactly why, possibly because of local environmental exhaustion. China, the last of the river valley civilizations, demonstrated greater continuity, with the Zhou dynasty, formed shortly before 1000, continuing, though amid weak organization, for several centuries beyond.

What is clear, particularly outside of China, is that a new series of civilizations, partly co-located with where the early civilizations had been and certainly building on their achievements, was actively in the wings by 1000 BCE or shortly thereafter. These civilizations would assume greater power than the river valley societies had mustered. They would also benefit immensely from the use of iron, rather than bronze, for tools and weapons. Iron use, introduced in southwestern Asia around 1500 BCE, generated a metal far stronger than bronze, the basis both for greater agricultural productivity and for fiercer warfare. Here was a technological underpinning for the next great era in world history.

The Classical Period, 1000 BCE to 600 CE

The most obvious focus of world history during the 1500 or so years after 1000 BCE is on the expansion and development of major societies in China, India, Persia and the Mediterranean. In each of these cases, some combination of government conquests (facilitated by tighter military organization and iron weaponry), new migrations of people, and diffusion of key cultures led to the establishment of civilization zones much larger than what the river valley societies had attained. China thus expanded to embrace more southern territory. Indian culture and social organization fanned out from a new base along the Ganges River, gradually reaching additional portions of the subcontinent. A new Persian Empire arose and for several centuries controlled the Middle East and some territory beyond. Finally, beginning with expansionist Greek city states and ending with the vast Roman Empire, a Mediterranean civilization developed that would ultimately embrace southern Europe, substantial chunks of the Middle East, and North Africa.

These expanded territories had to be linked and integrated in various ways. Governments began to promote new road systems, a vital aspect of developments in China, Persia and Rome. The Persian Empire even established the world’s first postal service, along with carefully-spaced inns for travelers. All the classical civilizations worked to promote internal trade, taking advantage of specialty areas within the society. Thus China built north-south canals to facilitate exchanges between rice-growing regions in the south and grain growing areas in the north. Greece and Rome promoted active trade in the Mediterranean, with olives and grapes coming from southern Europe in exchange for grains from places like North Africa. Cultural integration involved efforts to spread belief systems and even languages to provide more common currency within the expanded territory. Thus the Chinese promoted the use of Mandarin for the upper class throughout the country, while in the eastern Mediterranean use of Greek spread well beyond Greece itself. In India, the development of the Hindu religion, but also the spread of Buddhism provided common religious interests through much of the subcontinent. Greek and Roman artistic styles spread widely through the Mediterranean region, establishing monuments that still draw tourists today from Turkey to Tunisia to France and Spain. Finally, all of the expanding civilizations at various points established empires, uniting all or (in India’s case) most of the civilization territory under a single government. The establishment of the Chinese Empire, particularly under the Han dynasty, was the most important imperial development, in terms of long-term consequences, but Persia, Rome and the two imperial periods in India (Mauryan and Gupta dynasties) were milestones as well. Many empires tried to solidify their political hold by moving peoples to promote further loyalty and integration: the Chinese moved northern Chinese populations south, to further unity, while both Greek and Roman governments sent out colonies to help tie some of the more distant regions to the homeland.

The classical period is defined, then, above all by expanding large-regional civilizations, with new forms of economic, cultural and political integration creating new ties within the new regional units.

Distinctive Features

In the process, each of the new civilizations also established a sense of core traditions, which in many cases would outlast the classical period itself. These traditions were cultural above all, but they also included political impulses and social ideas. Each civilization thus developed some defining characteristics that provided at least some degree of unity within the territory—though more clearly among upper than among lower classes—and that could differentiate each major civilization from the other. Civilization here takes on a second meaning: not only a form of human organization, but also a set of identities and identifying features.

Not surprisingly, given this definitional aspect, each set of markers was somewhat distinctive. The Indian tradition was defined by a strong religious impulse, with Hinduism ultimately the most important carrier and with artistic achievements illustrating religious beliefs; but also by the beliefs and practices surrounding the caste system. Political achievements were significant but less central. China, in contrast, came to emphasize the importance of a strong state and a bureaucratic upper class, linked to the importance of Confucian philosophy and social beliefs. The classical Mediterranean tradition, amplified in different though related ways by Greece and then Rome, emphasized the importance of politics and (most commonly) aristocratic rule, but also the characteristic literary and artistic traditions that related to a civic, polytheistic religion. The Mediterranean also was defined by substantial reliance on slavery, a labor system that was much less important in India and China.

The Persian case is a bit harder to handle. The powerful Persian Empire was matched, on the cultural side, by the development of the distinctive Zoroastrian religion. Persia would be conquered however by Alexander the Great, coming from Greece, and Persian and Greek elements intermingled for a time. Later, after the classical period, Persian culture would be transformed by the arrival of Islam. Still, a Persian tradition (for example, in art) and a separate Persian Empire periodically revived. The contemporary nation of Iran builds on this complex tradition.

Overall, however, the classical period gains significance in world history from the fact that each key regional civilization established a number of lasting features, including central cultural traditions, important elements of which can still be identified today. The classical achievements continue to inspire awe: contemporary Iranians for example cast back to Persia as part of their own sense of identity, just as many Westerners or Russians remain fascinated with Greece and Rome. In key cases, classical traditions continue not just to impress, but to shape ongoing reactions. India grapples with legacies of the caste system, though it was outlawed in 1947. China continues to reflect particular interests in the importance of a strong state and political order. In no case does the classical tradition define contemporary civilizations, for far too much has changed; but the influence is real.

The significance and durability of classical traditions, but also key differences, obviously suggest the importance of comparison in approaching the classical period as a whole. The Roman and Han Chinese Empires form a particularly obvious comparative pairing, but other opportunities are also vital, for societies in general and for individual topics like religion or science. The similarities among the classical experiences must be retained as well as the different features and identities.

Complexities in the Classical Period

The formation of extensive regions and some durable traditions constitutes the most obvious structure for the classical period and for comparison, but there are other issues to watch as well:

• First, the classical systems did not emerge fully formed; in each case, they developed over time. Classical China, for example, developed a strong state tradition only after several centuries.
• Second, the classical traditions must not be oversimplified. Each of these large, complex civilizations embraced a variety of currents. Indian religion and religious art deserve note, obviously, but so does the rise of Indian science and mathematics. And there were several major Indian religions at this point.
• Third, analysis of the separate classical civilizations must not prevent identifying some underlying dynamics. For example, the use of iron plus the political and economic innovations in the classical period encouraged population growth. Between 1000 BCE and l CE world population doubled, to 250 million people. This was a global development to an extent, reflecting the expansion of agriculture, but it concentrated particularly in the classical civilizations. At their height Rome and China each had populations of about 55 million people.
• Fourth, attention to the separate patterns of the classical civilizations must be balanced by awareness of their interactions, and their related impact on some surrounding regions. Patterns here varied. Greece and Persia, and later Rome and Persia, had many contacts, particularly through war. Exchanges between India and China heated up toward the end of the classical period with the main result the importation of Buddhism in China. More important still were the two major sets of routes that linked the classical civilizations and also drew in other participants, for example with Ethiopia in northwestern Africa. A series of overland connections, from western China through central Asia and into India, Persia and through the Persian road network to the Mediterranean, have been called the “Silk Roads.” Interest in Chinese silk spread among the upper classes even as far away as Rome. Most of this trade was through short, several-hundred-miles stages. At most one Roman group went directly to China, and mutual Chinese–Roman knowledge was limited. The trade route, however, did create awareness of the desirability of products from distant points. A second network ran through the Indian Ocean. Romans were sending expeditions to India on a regular basis by the time of the Empire, from ports on the Red Sea, and groups of Romans actually set up export operations in Indian cities with particular interest in pepper.

Decline and Fall

Between 200 and 600 CE the great classical empires fell. The Han dynasty in China was first to go, collapsing in 220 and opening a 350-year period of frequent invasions and small, warring states. The Roman Empire began to decline from about 180 onward, gradually losing territory and suffering less effective government. The imperial government in the West collapsed entirely in the fifth century. A separate Roman government had by that point been set up in Constantinople (formerly Byzantium), and an eastern or Byzantine Empire, focused on present-day Turkey and southeastern Europe, persisted for several centuries. India’s Gupta Empire collapsed in the sixth century, after a period of decline.

The end of the classical period reflected important invasions by hunting and gathering or nomadic peoples. Particularly important were incursions from the Huns of central Asia. Different Hun groups attacked China, a bit later Europe, and also the Guptas. A devastating series of epidemic diseases hit the classical world, particularly China and Rome, disrupting the economy and morale alike. New political problems also jeopardized trade, including the Silk Roads, generating new economic constraints on individuals and governments alike.

The accumulation of changes added up to the end of the classical period. For many regions, political and economic stability deteriorated for some time. Political unity in the Mediterranean world ended outright, and has never since recovered. Change in India was less drastic. Though large political units became less common, unless imposed from outside, Indian economic and cultural life continued along familiar patterns. Hinduism and the caste system spread southward in the subcontinent. In China, a long period of disruption yielded, late in the sixth century, to a new dynasty and the revival both of imperial government/bureaucracy and of Confucianism. The different regional results of the period of classical decline were extremely important in shaping the next period in world history. They also affected ongoing use of the classical heritage, which was much more direct in China, India and Byzantium than around the bulk of the Mediterranean.

The Post Classical Period, 500 CE to 1450 CE

This period is variously named, and is sometimes subdivided. World historians largely agree, however, on several major themes for the centuries involved—themes to which most major societies had to react. The onset of the period was shaped by the turmoil in much of the classical world. Several regions, including Western Europe and India, did not recover the degree of political organization they had developed during the classical period.

During this period, a large number of new regions established the apparatus of civilization, including more important cities and formal government. Japan, Russia, northwestern Europe, additional parts of sub-Saharan Africa (both West Africa and eastern Africa down the Indian Ocean coast), additional sections of central and Andean America were key cases in point.

During the period also, a number of newer areas, in trade contact with more established centers, began a process of deliberate imitation, particularly in technology and culture. Japan thus explicitly copied many features from China, Russia looked to the Byzantine Empire, Western Europe borrowed both from Islamic civilization and from Byzantium, Africa interacted with Islam and so on. Imitations often involved religion or philosophy, artistic forms, as well as agricultural techniques.

The two most important overarching themes in the postclassical period were the spread of major missionary religions and the acceleration of trans-regional trade among societies in Asia, Africa and Europe. Both of these developments permanently altered the framework for world history and the experiences of literally millions of people in different areas.

Missionary Religions

Buddhism was a well established religion by 500 CE. Christianity had started five centuries before, gaining ground slowly within the Roman Empire (about 10% of the Roman population was Christian by the fourth century), then much more rapidly when the Roman government began to provide support. Islam, the newest world religion, began around 600 CE and would initially enjoy the most rapid spread of all. All three of the expanding religions reflected the political and economic troubles of the late classical period, which prompted more interest in otherworldly goals. They were also strongly supported by vigorous missionary efforts. During the post-classical centuries, hundreds of thousands of people converted, usually from some form of polytheism, to one of the world religions, one of the great cultural shifts in human history.

Trade Connections

The second great change involved intensification of trans-regional trade, backed by important improvements in ships and navigational devices. Arab traders, soon supplemented by Persians and others, established a strong route across the Indian Ocean, linking the Middle East to India, Southeast Asia and the Pacific coast of China. Clusters of Arab traders located in southern Chinese ports. Connecting to this route in turn was an Arab-African network down the African east coast; a trans-Sahara overland connection from West to North Africa; a route from Scandinavia through western Russia to Constantinople, with contacts with Arab trade; a bit more gradually, links from Western Europe to the Mediterranean and hence to Arab merchants, Japan’s regular trade with Korea and China was a final major connection. More regions, exchanging more goods of wider variety, were important components of this whole network. Other interactions were attached: Arabs, for example, learned the Hindu numbering system and then spread it more widely, with the result that Europeans called the numbers Arabic as they began to adopt them. Knowledge of paper, a Chinese invention, spread more widely. Maps and travel accounts both expanded and improved.

Technological advances included new sailing ship design, by the Arabs, and toward the end of the period additional shipping improvements from China. The introduction of the compass, initially from China, was a huge navigational gain, and it spread quickly around the Indian Ocean and thence to Europe.

Contacts facilitated technological exchanges and exchanges of different crops (new strains of wheat, for instance, spread from Africa to Europe) that helped improve agriculture. This in turn began to accelerate world population gains following the declines in the late classical period, with levels reaching almost half a billion by 1350 CE. At the end of the period, the rapid spread of bubonic plague from China through the Middle East and Europe briefly reduced population levels, however.

The postclassical period began to draw to a close when Arab power and political effectiveness started to decline, by the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. New commercial rivals for the Arabs arose, including European (particularly Italian) merchants in the Mediterranean but also Indian and Southeast Asian Muslims in the Indian Ocean. The Arab empire—the caliphate—began to lose significant territories, and it was finally toppled late in the thirteenth century.

 

Peter N. Stearns, “A World History Skeleton,” World History: The Basics, pp. 17-35. Copyright © 2011 by Taylor & Francis Group. Reprinted with permission.