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Periodization: Creating a Framework for Understanding the Past
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Date: _____________
To make sense of the vast
amount of information available
about the past, historians use
periodization.
Facts do not cease to exist
because they are ignored.
~Aldous Huxley
What is Periodization?
 Periodization is the dividing or categorizing of time into separate sections.
Why do historians use periodization?
 To distinguish one cluster of interrelated historical events from another in order to
discover patterns of change
 To identify significant shifts in those patterns in terms of discontinuities or turning
points, which serve as the start and end of periods
 To highlight trends or events that appear dominant or important during a
particular span of time
But problems emerge:
1. All systems of periodization are more or less arbitrary
2. Labels are continually challenged and redefined
Questions to consider:
How can periodization help explain the J-Curve of explosive population growth on the
planet? Are these periods fixed or arbitrary? Will these labels be redefined or challenged?
More Thoughts on Periodization
 Definition of Periodization:
A conceptual tool that makes change over time manageable by identifying big
changes
 Implied Watersheds:
Developments or events that occurred in world history affecting the most people
 Criteria for periodization:
Change (political, economic, cultural, biological) in relation to the “masses”
 Three Overlapping Shifts:
Three overlapping shifts across societies must occur for a new period of world
history to be identified
1. The world map must change significantly
(Cultural, political, or economic boundaries; migrations)
2. New kinds of contacts must be established among civilizational areas
(New trade patterns, outreach of religions)
3. New parallelisms must arise in patterns displayed by major civilizations
(Example: “The fall of the great empires meets the requirements. Cultural
and political boundaries shifted in India and the Mediterranean world.
Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam spread widely. The Islamic world
replaced India as the most expansive civilization.”)
Periodization in World History
I. 8000 BCE-600 CE (Foundations)
Neolithic Revolution, Urban Revolution, Rise of Civilizations, River Valley
Civilizations and expansionist civilizations (classical world)
II. 600 BCE-1450BCE (Post-classical)
Significant for the spread of the “world religions” even though some like
Christianity and Buddhism began to spread before this period while Islam
spread during this period, the political systems which followed the classical
empires - the Han, Roman, and Gupta Empires - fell at different times but by
the 7th century, post-classical political systems were emerging
III. 1450-1750 (The Early Modern Period)
The Portuguese began exploring the coast of Africa in the 15th century and
by the end of century, Europeans had reached both the Americas and the East
Indies. The intellectual (Renaissance, Scientific Revolution), social (Protestant
Reformation), economic (Commercial Revolution), and political (absolutism)
changes in European impacted other regions. However, changes were occurring
elsewhere in the world that also had global significance (Ottomans, Safavids,
Mughals, Mings, the cessation of Zheng He’s explorations, primacy of Moscow
over Kiev, and the end stage of feudalism in Japan).
IV. 1750-1914 (The Modern Era)
The Enlightenment, revolutions in the Americas, the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, and a second round of European imperialism led to a shift
in Europe and the West’s relationship to other regions
V. 1914-Present (Contemporary)
The beginning of many “modern” changes in technology and accelerated global
interactions, the World Wars, the collapse of European imperialism, the Cold
War and its impact on former colonial regions, American hegemony
List ten of the most significant events in all of world history affecting the greatest number
of people:
_________________________
________________________ _______________________
_________________________
________________________ _______________________
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Excerpt from Jerry H. Bentley, “Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World
History” The American Historical Review, Volume 101, no. 3 (June1996): 749-770.
“Periodization ranks among the more elusive tasks of historical Scholarship. As practicing
historians well know, the identification of coherent periods of history involves much more
than the simple discovery of self-evident turning points in the past: it depends on prior
decisions about the issues and processes that are most important for the shaping of human
societies, and it requires the establishment of criteria or principles that enable historians to
sort through masses of information and recognize patterns of continuity and change. Even
within the framework of a single society, changes in perspective can call the coherence of
conventionally recognized periods into question, as witness Joan Kelly’s famous essay “Did
Women Have a Renaissance?” or Dietrich Gerhard’s concept of “old Europe.”
When historians address the past from global points of view and examine processes that
cross the boundary lines of societies and cultural regions, the problems of periodization
become even more acute. Historians have long realized that periodization schemes based on
the experiences of Western or any other particular civilization do a poor job of explaining
the trajectories of other societies. To cite a single notorious example, the categories of
ancient, medieval, and modern history, derived from European experience, apply
awkwardly at best to the histories of China, India, Africa, the Islamic world, or the
Western hemisphere—quite apart from the increasingly recognized fact that they do not
even apply very well to European history. As historians take global approaches to the past
and analyze human experiences from broad and comparative perspectives, however,
questions of periodization present themselves with increasing insistence. To what extent is
it possible to identify periods that are both meaningful and coherent across the boundary
lines of societies and cultural regions? What criteria or principles might help historians to
sort out patterns of continuity and change and to distinguish such periods?”
A- What problems do historians face as they construct historical periods?
B- Why does periodization based on a particular civilization pose problems to
historians?
C- Why is periodization particularly challenging for world historians?
D- How do the goals of world historians inform the debate on periodization?
1- Explain the quote: “Strictly speaking, there are no periods in history, only in
historians’ analyses.”
2- Why is the debate on historical dating (BC versus BCE…AD versus CE) a source of
concern for world historians?
3- What criteria can historians use to make distinctions among sections of time?
4- List the top ten technological developments prior to the Industrial Revolution.
5- Historians distinguish between primary and secondary sources. However, primary
and secondary sources, while providing information about the past, pose problems
as well to historians. What problems do primary and secondary sources pose?
6- World Historians often refer to three distinct phases in world history (the
Paleolithic Period, the Neolithic Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution). Of
course, using the course’s periodization, a more specific framework has been
created. Why is the course’s periodization more elaborate than the “three phases”
approach?
7- Consider the question posed by Joan Kelly: “Did women have a Renaissance?”
Why is this question significant for world historians and how does this question
present a challenge to the notion of periodization?
8- World historians are very interested in social class structures. How can social class
structures alter the telling of history?
9- Consider this: The three Cs of World History: Change, Connections, and
Comparison allow for a framework for analysis for exploring the themes of World
History. The themes of World History are
 Interaction between humans and the environment (Demography and disease,
migration, patterns of settlement, and technology)
 Development and interactions of culture (Religions, Belief Systems, Science and
technology, Arts and Architecture)
 State-building, expansion, and conflict (Political systems; Empires; Nations and
nationalism; Revolts and revolutions; Regional and Global structures)
 Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems (Agriculture,
Pastoralism, Trade, Commerce, Labor Systems, and Capitalism and Socialism)
 Development and transformation of social structures (Gender roles, Family, Racial
and Ethnic Constructions, and Social and Economic Classes)