A whole lot of histories are middle eastern/euro centric, just going to look at the wikipedia timeline doesn’t have a lot of context.
I was wondering about something like the history of humanity, which skips around with a lot of MEANWHILE IN… And basically includes all archaeological discoveries and reasoned supposition.
MEANWHILE IN CHINA…
EDIT:I know reading area histories is possible individually, but sometimes I think it would be interesting to see all areas in context and time.
Try asking a librarian for help, that’s what they are for.
Does your mention of wikipedia sources mean you only want to read online?
How about this?
A bit short on detail, but fascinating.
Someone posted a link to it before on the Dope; not sure who though.
You could try Asimov’s.
You could try Arnold Toynbee. In A Study of History, he essentially tries to create a Universal Theory of History by identifying the common patterns which related every human civilization. As a consequence he took pretty much all of human history into account when he wrote it.
The problem is all of human history is a pretty big subject - the complete work is twelve volumes long and even the abridged version (by David Somervell) is a good-sized work. Another, and more critical problem, is Toynbee is primarily outlining his theory of why things happen in history rather than writing a narrative history of what happened. He pretty much assumes you already know the basic events. And one final problem is a lot of other historians have found reasons to disagree with Toynbee’s ideas in whole or in part.
Sadly, Mel Brooks only completed the first part of his History of the World.
Right. You could make yourself crazy trying to keep track of all the important events that happened in one year all over the world, let alone trying to keep simultaneous track of them. Whew. Ambitious.
I personally like The Penguin History of the World, by JM Roberts. Read it twice, and it’s not small, about 1000 pages of small print.
Just checked my copy. Make that 1100 pages of small print.
Looks like Roberts left Penguin. Anything by him is eminently readable.
That chart has much which is very doubtful.
[ul][li] Hammurabi of Babylon is shown about 200 years before his correct date.[/li][li] Dates for Iranians and Hindus are before any attestation; Mitanni linked to Iranians (s/b Aryans), Elamites linked to Iranians :smack: ; Punjab was “inhabited until now by primitive Dravidians” :smack:[/li]No, the Harappan civilisation was in many ways the most advanced of its era – and quite likely NOT Dravidian.
[li] “Goths … and other Teutonic tribes … invade Italy” ca 250 BC. … I don’t think it’s generally agreed the Goths had even crossed the Baltic by then.[/li][/ul]
One work which is surprisingly good is the Time-Life series, Time Frame. Each volume in the series covers a specific period of time, generally a century, and has around five chapters covering some major historic movements that occurred during that century. And they do make an effort to cover history outside of just Western civilization.
So, for example, in the volume covering the eleventh century AD, you have a chapter on Song China, the rise of the Seljuk Turks, the Norman Conquest, the foundation of Kievan Russia, and the Chola Empire in India.
I thought the amount of space devoted to the Antarctic region and fluctuations in fish stocks was a bit excessive, though.
For a slightly different take - wide-scoped, offbeat, and engaging as hell: Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe.
Volumes 1-7: From the BIG BANG to Alexander the Great
Volumes 8-13: From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome
Volumes 14-19: From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance
Followed by his Cartoon History of the Modern World series:
Part 1: From Columbus to the U.S. Constitution
Part 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad
They’re worthwhile.
This is the book you want - it is awesome!
Is that a whoosh? My copy doesn’t have any of that. It’s from 1995.
Ah, yes - seconded. Charming, and a fascinating window into the mindsets of the era in which it was written.
…penguin
:smack::o
