Page 100 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

tfw-40 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

This interesting plate of knives shows the development of the hand knife used throughout
human history for working wood. Knives 1 through 7 are all of stone, each one more
carefully finished than earlier ones. Knives 8 through 10 show specialized use of bamboo,
ivory, and clam shell. The remainder of the knives all have metal blades and show increasing
sophistication with handles, hinges, springs, and several blades in one knife.

twenty-six years in 1820 to about sixty-six years at the a form of old-age insurance. Finally, urbanization and
end of the twentieth century. These gains have not been commercialization have created more varied forms of
shared equally, but all parts of the world have felt their employment for women as well as men.Women are less
impact. closely tied to their traditional role as child rearers, par-
ticularly in the most industrialized regions of the world.
Improved Opportunities Nevertheless, gender inequality still survives even in
for Women those societies most deeply transformed by the modern
Relations between men and women have been renegoti- revolution. Even in the United States and western Europe
ated in many parts of the world. New energy sources have the average wages of women lag behind those of men.
reduced the importance of physical strength in employ-
ment, new forms of contraception have given women and Destruction of
men more control over reproduction, and new tech- Premodern Lifeways
nologies, such as bottle feeding, have allowed parents to Finally, the modern revolution has destroyed premodern
more easily share the task of caring for infants. Reduced lifeways. Until the twentieth century independent com-
infant mortality and new forms of socialized old-age sup- munities of foragers survived in many parts of the world,
port have reduced the pressure to have many children as but by the end of the twentieth century no foragers lived