Page 157 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1458 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

He won’t fly on the Balinese airline, Garuda, because
he won’t fly on any airline where the pilots believe in
reincarnation. • Spalding Gray (1941–2004)

modern societies have not appeared in a chronologi- cyclic terms, periods of history running their course
cally random jumble, but in a clear sequence. And that eventually to restart the cycle again; some cultures, par-
sequence has an underlying logic that reflects changing ticularly the Euro-American West, have viewed human
human relations with the environment. On large chrono- time in linear terms, periods of history running toward
logical scales, human technologies have changed so as an ultimate goal. In some schemes, history is viewed as
to yield increasing amounts of energy, food, and other a narrative of declension, each age worse than the one
resources, which allowed human populations to increase. preceding it; in others, a narrative of ascent toward
This, in turn, has given rise to larger and more complex progress and improvement.
communities, whose technologies and sheer numbers
have given them many advantages whenever they came The Ancient World
into contact with smaller communities with less produc- In the third century BCE, the Chinese philosopher Tsou
tive technologies.There is a shape to human history, and Yen (340–260? BCE) developed a cyclic model of history
that is precisely why a periodization scheme of some kind modeled on the seasonal changes of the annual year. The
is so necessary. Book of Rites proposed three seasons in human history
—the Age of Disorder, the Age of Righteousness, and the
David Christian
Age of Great Peace—which the Han commentators ac-
See also Human Evolution—Overview; Long Cycles; cepted in the Annals of Spring and Summer. This notion
Periodization, Conceptions of fell out of favor, only to be revived in modern times by
K’ang Yu-wei (1858–1927 CE), for whom the cyclic the-
ory of history was a central tenet of Confucianism.
Further Reading On the analogy of its theology of human reincarna-
Bentley, J. H. (1996). Cross-cultural interaction and periodization in tion, Hinduism proposed a cycle of four stages (yugas),
world history. American Historical Review, 101, 749–756.
Dunn, R. E. (Ed.). (2000). The new world history:A teacher’s companion. found in the texts of the epic Mahabarata and of the
Boston & New York: Bedford. Puranas.The first age, the Krita Yuga, is the golden age of
Green, W. A. (1992). Periodization in European and world history. In
Journal of World History, 3(1), 13–53. human virtue and well-being; the second, Treta Yuga, a
Livi-Bacci, M. (1992). A concise history of world population. Oxford, UK: period of declining virtue; the third, Dvapara Yuga, a time
Blackwell. of disease and sin; the fourth, Kali Yuga, a time of human
Stearns, P. N. (1987). Periodization in world history teaching: Identify-
ing the big changes. The History Teacher, 20, 561–580. suffering and religious neglect (in which we are said to
live today). The Kali Yuga will end in the destruction of
the world and its reincarnation into a new Krita Yuga.
The ancient Greeks tended to divide time into two: the
mythic prehistory of the gods and the history of humans.
Periodization, In Works and Days, Hesiod (flourished c. 800 BCE) pro-

posed a further narrative of declension and conceived of
Conceptions of human time in five eras: the Golden Age, ruled by Kro-
nos, in which humans and gods dwelt together without
eriodization, the desire to make sense of human toil or pain; followed by the Silver Age, ruled by Zeus,
Ptime by imposing epochs or eras upon the past, pres- during which humans began to neglect duties to the gods
ent, and future, has existed across time and cultures in and to fellow humans; the third, the Bronze Age, a
global history. Categorizing human time into discrete period of brutality; fourth, the Heroic Age, a time of great
periods makes sense of seemingly random past events men and deeds; and finally the present Iron Age, a time
and projects that coherence in a trajectory into the future. of selfish individualism.The Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–
Many cultures have viewed human time in circular or 17 CE) adopted this scheme (minus the Heroic Age) in