Historical Overview

A Brief Tour over 15 billion years

Pre-History

• Big Bang—15 billion years ago

• pre-humans from 3 million years ago

• human development– increased cranial capacity– more sophisticated tools– hunting/gathering bands– mastery of fire– homo sapiens sapiens--80,000-120,000 years ago

(Cro Magnon in Europe)

Neolithic Revolution• Ground and polished tools• domestication of animals/plants• agriculture and plowing• wheel for transportation• Sumer, Nile, Yangtze, Mesoamercia, etc• “most significant event in human development”• 8000 BCE—agriculture; 3000 BCE—first cities

in Sumer

Age of Empires

• Israelites—monotheism, ethical basis for society (1250 BCE—Hebrew exodus from Egypt)

• Iron Age begins ca. 1000 BCE--allows improved tools, weapons, transport, plows

• increasing cultural interaction after 500 BCE

Classical Antiquity--the Greeks• Greeks—philosophy, city-states, art/arch/lit,

science

• Persian Wars--turning point (480 BCE—battle of Salamis)

• 5th century Athens (Golden Age)

• Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)--leads to decline of Hellenic Age and Greek independence (lack of unity)

• Alexander and Hellenistic Age (323 BCE)

Classical Antiquity--the Romans

• Importance of Rome--law, engineering, political unity, architecture, Latin

• Roman Republic (509 BCE)—gradually conquers rivals (not a deliberate plan)

• Punic Wars v. Carthage

• conquest of Greeks (spread Greek ideas)

• civil turmoil and civil war (2nd/1st c. BCE)

The Roman Empire• 30 CE—Jesus crucified and approx. beginning

of empire

• Five Good Emperors (96-180) provide peace and stability--Pax Romana

• 3rd and 4th century crisis--economic collapse, political instability, plague, demographic problems, invasions

• 313—Constantine and Edict of Toleration

• 476—fall of western Empire (Byzantine)

Early Middle Ages, 500-1000

• “Dark Ages”—decline of cities, trade, monasteries, insecurity, invasion

• rise of Islam (632—Mohammed dies)

• temporary revival under Carolingians (Charlemagne crowned in 800)

• invasions—Saracens, Vikings, Magyars--in 9th century (collapse of Carolingian)

• development of feudalism (stirrup)

High Middle Ages, 1000-1300• Spread of Christianity geographically and

culturally (987—Vladimir converts)

• Europe begins to expand (1095—first Crusade—trade, cultural exchange)

• medieval synthesis—Scholasticism, Gothic architecture, Latin, feudalism, nation/states, Catholic Church (papacy), technology

• 12th century Renaissance

• a “key” age in development of W Civ.

Later Middle Ages, 1300-1500

• 14th century crisis—famine, plague, war, religious division

• 1348—Black Death--killed up to 40% of Euorpe’s population--crucible of change

• breakdown of High Medieval Synthesis

• 1453—fall of Constantinople (last link with Rome), printing press, end of 100 Years War

Renaissance and Reformation

• “rebirth of classical culture”

• strong continuities with Middle Ages (esp. in social life)

• Age of Exploration (1492)

• challenge to unifying force of Catholic Church (1517)—religious/pol division

Rise of National States

• Religious Warfare, 1517-1648

• balance of power emerges and changes (1588—defeat of Spanish Armada)

• Thirty Years War—ends in 1648 with Peace of Westphalia (Europe divided, last religious war, religious toleration, nation-state sovereignty)

Age of Absolutism and Warfare

• Growth of absolute monarchies, 1648-1715

• Louis XIV is the archetype (dies in 1715 w/Peace of Utrecht)

• Commercial Revolution and wars

• limited monarchies (Glorious Revolution in England—1688-89)

• republics, city-states, and empires

Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

• Copernicus and heliocentrism—1543

• from a vitalistic to a mechanistic view of the world

• culminates with Newton’s synthesis in 1687

• importance: undercuts religion, new power to state, idea of progress, technology, questioning of traditional institutions

• 1776—Wealth of the Nations and American Revolution

Age of Revolution, 1789-1850• French Revolution begins in 1789 as

fundamental critique of Old Regime

• spreads and stimulates opposition and war--1815—Congress of Vienna stunts revolution

• 1815-48—revolutions abound (1848-Marx)

• spread of industry—mechanization, mineral powers, urbanization, social problems (1851—Crystal Place Exhibition)

• Age of Ideologies—Dual Revolution

Modernism Emerges, 1850-1914

• Modern—reduce all of life to scientific principles

• 1859—Darwin’s Origin of Species (challenges religion and introduces random)

• Freud and Einstein (1905—relativity) further challenge reason, objectivity

Nationalism and Imperialism, 1850-1914

• Unification of nation-states by conservative leaders—Italy and Germany (1871)

• competition leads to imperial rivalries and First World War

• 1914-18 (WWI)

War , Revolution, and Crisis, 1914-45

• Great War—defines the 20th century and undermines confidence in reason, technology, progress

• 1918—Bolshevik Revolution

• totalitarian movements (1933—Hitler comes to power)

• more destructive conflict (ends in 1945)

End of the Twentieth Century?

• Europe’s recovery

• “Pulling Back and Together” (decolonization and European unity)

• Cold War leads to Europe’s division

• 1989-91—Fall of Communism and end of USSR

• next age?