Main Points

History is Now

World history can seem intimidating. But in order to learn names and dates, you first need a mental framework, an outline or pencil sketch that those pieces fit into. History is difficult only when you have no way to put the pieces in context; that's like putting a puzzle together in the dark.

This is why our timelines consolidate history so simply. A typical timeline still throws names and dates at you, and says "Good luck." Our timelines are a little different; we present only the most important facts in a simple narrative form. Facts also have a nasty habit of focusing on "moments" in history, so we describe not moments, but key time periods, or eras. We illustrate history by focusing on each era and describing how that era is bound together by coherent themes; for instance the Industrial era is defined by the development of machines and the rise of mass culture. Studying eras allows you to get comfortable with a small amount of information that describes centuries or even millenia.

6000 years of civilization is intimidating. But in reality, when viewed as eras, world history before 1500AD divides neatly into just three historical eras. And the 500 years from 1500-2000AD comprise another three. Depending whether you're interested in ancient or modern history, that gives you only three eras to study, or six eras if you literally want the whole world.

Without that framework, you're trying to take tiny bits of history that don't even fit together and make sense of them. Our timelines give you a pencil sketch of the whole of history; they give you a place to start. Then when you're reading about history, each name and date is coloring in a portion of that sketch with vibrant color and detail. You're no longer lost, you have a map that shows you how these details fit into your larger understanding.

Reading the summaries on this page is where you should start. Then decide where you need to go next. If these summaries are too short, get a more detailed sketch into the themes that define each era by reading the era summaries. If you need to see some examples, dive right into the details to see how the theoretical themes of the Formative era played out concretely in the Formative Middle East; see how Egypt and Mesopotamia illustrate the importance of agriculture and urbanization to the earliest civilizations, or anything else that interests you.

Formative Era (Prehistory ~ 500BC)

The Formative era sees the rise of the first civilizations in world history. While there are a number of phases in prehistoric development, things really transform around 11,000 BC with the first stirrings of the Agricultural Revolution. For the first time, people settle down and build communities, abandoning their previous existence as wandering hunter-gatherers. For protection, these villages grew and began to build fortifications and defenses, which by 4000BC had grown into the first true cities. The power of these cities was determined almost entirely by location; the more fertile the surrounding farmland, the larger and more powerful the city. So the great river valleys of the world dominated the surrounding countryside. And as more and more cities vied for control of these prime territories, the most powerful rulers became those who day by day, by fits and starts, found hard-nosed practical ways to get a leg up on their rivals.

Formative Era

Ancient Era (500BC ~ 500AD)

The Ancient era sees the awakening of learning. Where Formative civilizations had muddled through, their successors began to understand what they understood, and then do it even better. They began to articulate higher goals, draw abstract lessons from those who had come before about why they were successful. This lead to the formation of courts, bureaucracies, and other institutions. It also led to the first limited governments, rulers that understood what "could" be done was not always a good idea. These civilizations also began to set these lessons down in books for the future, books intended for all "important" people to read, not merely a class of scribes. As generations began to pass, those who succeeded were not only those with cities and governments, but those with libraries. Those who learned not only from their rivals, but from a body of learning bequeathed to it by the past. This led to education, libraries, theaters, and fired art and culture, even if relatively few still enjoyed the benefits. So while powerful empires resisted change and "kept doing what had always worked", young "barbarians" stormed the gates.

Ancient Era

  • Ancient China - The border peoples of Szechuan conquer China: the Qin & Han dynasties.
  • Ancient Europe - Europe transformed from local backwater into international empire: the Greeks and Macedonians.
  • Ancient India - The Ganges basin conquers the Indus River valley and assumes its permanent place as the heartland of Indian civilization.
  • Ancient Middle East - The Persians conquer Mesopotamia and are welcomed as saviors, the inheritance and transformation of Mesopotamian culture.

Medieval Era (500 ~ 1500AD)

The Medieval era sees the development of religion; the need to reach for higher goals which begins during the Ancient era, sees its ultimate expression and becomes intensely personalized for the spirit. By transforming culture at such a personal level, a strong unifying undercurrent to interpersonal relations of all kinds is created, and the first seeds of a greater cultural identity are sown. Understanding and managing religion becomes a powerful new tool for politicians to use wisely or manipulatively. It also transforms military culture, which becomes dominated by religious warriors who train to a level of excellence and fight with a level of discipline that no Ancient civilization would have believed much less attained.

Medieval Era

  • Medieval China - Chapter 1: Barbarian invasions trigger national identity crisis, the rise of Buddhism. Chapter 2: the coming of the Mongols.
  • Medieval Europe - From lion food to imperial revelation: Christianity sweeps Europe.
  • Medieval India - The meeting of the minds: political fragmentation nurtures Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu culture.
  • Medieval Middle East - Religion by conquest: Islam unites the Arabs and remolds the world.

Renaissance Era (1500 ~ 1750AD)

The Renaissance era witnesses the development of nation states; when Italy first becomes "Italy" and China first becomes "China". Religion had shown people that they could share a common bond even with people hundreds of miles away, and gradually this view became regional; especially when the message was encouraged by sharp rulers using propaganda, laws, and art. This new world view explains how internationalism and isolationism flourished side by side; they were simply opposite reactions to the question of how interesting the outside world should be. Moreover, the new "national" unity challenged religious unity and created an open door for learning to reappear. Asking questions during the Medieval era was frowned upon when the only appropriate answer was devout silence and respectful faith. But as the Ancient era had shown, knowledge is power. The new nation states were more tolerant of learning and reaped the rewards of power, in ways that older religion bound empires simply could not.

Renaissance Era

  • Renaissance China - Paradise Lost, Paradise regained: the Song and Ming dynasties.
  • Renaissance Europe - To Mongolia, Thanks for everything. Europe: A fragmented group of nations become the unwitting heirs of civilization.
  • Renaissance India - Peace through power: the Mughal dynasty and the last attempt to unite India.

Enlightenment Era (1750 ~ 1900AD)

The birth of the Enlightenment era was subtle and abstract in the extreme. The Renaissance had seen the blossoming of knowledge art and culture. If the typical pattern had repeated, learning was set for a down swing, and on the one hand religion did experience a personal resurgence even as the fire of religious war cooled and went out. However, there was literally a new spirit in the air. Two highly abstract schools of philosophy, rationalism and empiricism, united to form science as we know it today. At first, it was just another new philosophy fighting for acceptance. On the other hand, if religion is defined as the acceptance of faith, then science is the anti-religion, for it is the acceptance of doubt. Theory by theory, the new scientists began to conduct experiments which conclusively "proved" new ideas and overturned old paradigms. With its success came a host of rational challenges to the fundamental order of things. While the principles of science were not yet taught to most people, the transformation in society ran from the bottom to the top as evidenced by the development of democracy, communism, anarchy, and above all realism which permeated it all.

Enlightenment Era

Industrial Era (1900 ~ 2000AD)

The Industrial era saw the promise of science become technology, the application of science; this rocked the world not only in its implications but in its infiltration into all areas of life. The first result was the Industrial Revolution. Every civilization, no matter how powerful, fought with this change; the social transformations were unprecedented. The second result was that mass production joined marketing and telecommunications to create a new level of unity, mass culture. For the first time in history all strata from the wealthiest to the poorest began to partake in a diverse, but common lifestyle, set of customs, and set of social expectations. The complications were even more extreme for countries outside the European sphere of influence; these nations had not even lived through the preparatory phases which had given birth to this titanic shift. Thus they struggled with a three-headed beast: industrialization, cultural identity, and the painful legacy of colonialism.

Industrial Era

  • Industrial Africa - Fighting for independence and cultural identity while struggling with industrialization and the colonial legacy.
  • Industrial North America - European society dominant, independent, and on top of the world: the United States.
  • Industrial South America - A government to rule them all: the search for stability in a post-colonial world.
  • Industrial China - Road to redemption, road to ruin: the difficult path of modernization in China.
  • Industrial Europe - The Industrial Revolution becomes industrial war as the fires started in the Enlightenment ravage the continent: the hegemony of Russia.
  • Industrial India - Becoming India: the rocky road to independence and the rockier road to national identity.
  • Industrial Middle East - Strangers in a strange land: the Middle East as Medieval Sleeping Beauty.
  • Industrial Oceania - European society dominant and the challenges of growing apart from a "home" that's half a world away.

Information Era (2000AD ~ Future)

The Information era saw the emergence of the natural conclusion of mass culture, the internet. The combined products of several different strands of technological advancement, the internet ushered in a borderless method of communication that took regional tools like television and gave them a global scope. Combined with the easing of travel barriers, this brought into question the very notion of a local or regional culture, as individuals anywhere could now partake in just about any culture that they wanted. The challenge has been termed globalization, and the ways in which nations answer this question becomes the defining characteristic of success among nations.

Information Era

Geographic Cross-Reference

While we recommend our timelines to learn world history, they are not the only avenue. You can also study the development of a particular region through the various eras, although obviously not every civilization went through every era of world history. That caused it's own problems, nevertheless, a geographical approach to history has its merits.

Geographic Cross-Reference

  • Africa - Independent development, the slave trade, and struggling towards modernity.
  • North America - Independent development, the plague, and the Europeanization of a continent.
  • South America - Independent development, plague, and the difference a few miles makes.
  • China - Originating culture, developing in isolation, and the clash of civilizations.
  • Europe - Always starting from behind, the rise of learning, and science takes a people across the world.
  • India - A civilization declines before it begins, the price of political fragmentation, and contact with Europe.
  • Middle East - Originating civilization, the privileges and perils of living at the crossroads, and price of greatness deferred.
  • Oceania - Civilization as diaspora: the settling of Oceania, the rise of the Polynesians, and the arrival of Europeans.