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McIntosh High School

WORLD HISTORY

A short excerpt from This Fleeting World by David Christian

Era of Foragers in World History

Historians have often assumed that little changed during the long era of foragers. In comparison with later eras of human history this assumption may seem to be true. It is also true that change was normally so slow that it was imperceptible within a single lifetime; thus, few men and women in the era of foragers could have appreciated the wider significance of technological changes. Nevertheless, in comparison with the pace during the pre-human era, the pace of technological change during the era of foragers was striking. Exploiting the technological synergy (the creative power generated by linking people through language) that was made available to humans by their capacity for symbolic language, human communities slowly learned to live successfully in a wide variety of new environments. A gradual accumulation of new skills allowed foraging communities to settle most of the world in migrations that had no precedent either among other primate species or among our hominid ancestors.
During the course of 250,000 years the pace of change was slowly accelerating. During the last fifty thousand years or so, the variety and precision of foraging technologies and techniques multiplied throughout the world. Eventually foraging technologies became sophisticated enough to allow groups of people in some regions to exploit their surroundings more intensively, a change that marks the first step toward agriculture.

Agrarian Era in World History

The introduction of agricultural technologies raised productivity, increased populations, and stimulated innovation. These developments explain why change was so much more rapid during the agrarian era than during the era of foragers. Larger, denser communities created new problems, which were solved by forming the large, hierarchical structures that we call “states, ““empires,” and “civilizations.” Within these structures the very nature of human communities was transformed as families and households found themselves incorporated in, and disciplined by states, religions, and market forces. The exchange of technologies and goods between larger regions and larger populations stimulated many small improvements in agrarian techniques, communications technologies, and the technologies of information storage and warfare. However, although innovation was much faster than it had been during the era of foragers, it was rarely fast enough to keep pace with population growth, which is why, on the smaller scales that meant most to rulers and their subjects, the characteristic rhythm of change during the agrarian era was cyclical.

The modern world built on the slow accumulation of people, resources, and information that took place during the agrarian era, but it was marked out from this era by another sharp acceleration in rates of innovation that would lead to one more fundamental transformation in human lifeways.

Modern Era in World History

In 1969, by landing on the moon, human beings took the first, hesitant steps toward leaving their home planet. These steps brought into focus some of the major changes of the modern revolution, reminding humans that the increasing power and complexity of human societies were bought at a price and came with many dangers. Humans now have the power to destroy themselves and to do much damage to the planet. Our increased power clearly has brought responsibilities for which we are ill prepared, and the great complexity of the modern global community has created new forms of vulnerability and the fearsome prospect of a major collapse, similar to the collapses suffered in the past by many overambitious irrigation-based societies from Sumer to the Maya. On the other hand, the immense sophistication and scale of the knowledge available today hold out the promise of a managed transition to a more sustainable relationship with the biosphere.

What remains unclear, then, is whether the modern revolution will lead to the emergence of a new global system capable of relative ecological, economic, and political stability, or whether the accelerating change of the modern era is the prelude to a sudden, sharp collapse that will drive many parts of the world back to the productivity levels of the early agrarian era, if not even further. Perhaps the fundamental paradox of the modern revolution is that on the one hand human control over the biosphere has increased spectacularly; yet, on the other hand we have not yet shown that we can use that control in ways that are equitable and sustainable. Are we really in control of our astonishing creativity as a species? We must wait to see whether the astonishing collective achievements of our species will prove ephemeral or enduring.

HISTORICAL PERIODIZATION
TECHNOLOGICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS	UP TO c. 600 B.C.E.
ORGANIZATION & REORGANIZATION OF HUMAN SOCIETIES	c. 600 B.C.E. - c. 600 C.E.
REGIONAL & TRANSREGIONAL INTERACTIONS	c. 600 C.E. - c. 1450
GLOBAL INTERACTIONS	c. 1450 - c. 1750
INDUSTRIALIZATION & GLOBAL INTEGRATION	c. 1750 - c. 1900
ACCELERATING GLOBAL CHANGE AND REALIGNMENTS	c. 1900 - PRESENT

HISTORICAL THEMES
THEME 1: INTERACTION BETWEEN HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
THEME 2: DEVELOPMENT AND INTERACTION OF CULTURES
THEME 3: STATE BUILDING, EXPANSION AND CONFLICT
THEME 4: CREATION, EXPANSION AND INTERACTION OF ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
THEME 5: DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES