A demographically weighted world history would cover times and places in proportion to the number of people who lived in them. The idea is that, as much as possible, every person who has ever lived would be equally represented in its pages.
For example, instead of spending 50% to 75% of its pages on the West, like most “world” histories written by Westerners seem to do, it would spend only 25%. The other 75% would be used to cover – the other 75% of the world. Western colonialism would be told from both sides.
“How many people did it affect?” would determine what got covered and what did not.
Unlike most Eurocentric histories, it would spend more time on:
- Asia, particularly India and China
- Africa
- women
- children
- ordinary people
- the conquered, colonized and enslaved
- democide
- daily life and changes in society
- religion
- agriculture
- poverty, famine, plague
But, like most Eurocentric histories, it would still favour:
- war
- technologically advanced societies (they can support more people)
- written accounts over oral ones (literate societies tend to be larger)
- later times over former times (more people are alive in later times)
- city over country
- farmer over nomad and hunter
- empires and big countries over small countries.
Table of contents:
- -4000 to +500 (4,500 years)
- East Asia
- South Asia
- West Eurasia
- Africa
- 500 to 1500 (1,000 years)
- East Asia
- South Asia
- West Eurasia
- Africa
- 1500 to 1900 (400 years)
- East Asia
- South Asia
- West Eurasia
- Africa
- 1900 to 2000 (100 years)
- East Asia
- South Asia
- West Eurasia
- Africa
- Americas, Oceania
Very roughly speaking, the same number of people lived in each of those times and places. “Very roughly” because it was not quite that uniform, but close enough if you want a consistent, understandable format.
Those who read just the parts on, say, West Eurasia and the Americas, would at least know that that is what they are doing.
Notice that the Americas and Oceania do not appear till the 1900s. Just for completeness a short chapter should be added for them in each of the earlier periods.
Compare this to the history I was taught at American public schools:
- -4000 to +500
- West Eurasia, Egypt
- 500 to 1500
- Western Europe
- 1500 to 1900
- White America
- 1900 to 2000
- White America
- The rest of the world to the degree that it affected American foreign policy (world war, cold war)
Demographically this is like 20% of world history.
Structure: You need a structure like the Table of Contents because simply taking a Western or Chinese history and throwing in some stuff about other parts of the world will not make it. Your home region will get you like 25% of the way there, tokenism maybe another 10%.
Voice: Each chapter should be written by someone from that region. Half the authors should be women. Strictly speaking this is not required for a demographically weighted history, but since part of the motive is to move away from one-sided, Eurocentric history, it makes sense. Particularly since in history choice of facts and point of view matter hugely.
See also:
[…] "A demographically weighted world history would cover times and places in proportion to the number of people who lived in them. The idea is that, as much as possible, every person who has ever lived would be equally represented in its pages.For example, instead of spending 50% to 75% of its pages on the West, like most “world” histories written by Westerners seem to do, it would spend only 25%. The other 75% would be used to cover – the other 75% of the world. Western colonialism would be told from both sides.“How many people did it affect?” would determine what got covered and what did not." […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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A demographically weighted history would spend over 90% of the time covering hunting & gathering and farming. Perhaps there’s more to history than raw numbers?
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I think world history could be useful as an addition to countrycentric/nationcentric regular history, but it shouldn’t replace it. IMO the main point of teaching history is to give people an understanding of where they came from so they could learn from it and figure out where their country/people are heading. People should learn global history in addition to their own story, not instead of it. Their own history is the one that is going to have the biggest impact on their lives, they should not skim over the parts that are not globally relevant.
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^ I would agree with that to some extent. I noticed that Native American history is basically absent from the demographically weighted one that Abagond proposed.
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@ Jefe @ Da Jokah
Native Americans, Australians of any colour, Maoris, Polynesians, etc, would get screwed in a history like this because their numbers cannot begin to compete with the likes of China, India or Europe.
Hunter-gatherers would be doing good just to get one page. Agriculture can support a thousand times more people, industry at least 10,000 times more.
Note that Native Americans are stereotyped as hunter-gatherers, as our resident history prof kind of did, but most knew how to grow maize, beans and squash, particularly in the east, particularly before the Spanish brought the horse.
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I guess that means we might have to learn history from maybe 6 different angles:
1. History of oneself and one’s “own people”. For white Americans, it might be similar to what they are already learning, but it might not be so for non-whites. It will be one where other people “contributed” to one’s own family and culture. This history will help to explain all the narratives in one’s family and give people a perspective of how they got to be where they are.
2. History of the country one is living in (not exactly the same as #1, as it will include people who are not one’s “own people” and also look at “contributions” to one’s country). It will also include history from the viewpoint of those who are part of the same country, but not one’s “own people”. In this instance, white Americans will also have to learn history from the viewpoint of non-whites.
3. History of the area where one is living (not exactly the same as #2, as it will include items not related to the current country that is occupying the place). It will include prior civilizations and peoples who used to occupy a place, as well as NATURAL history, ie, history of the flora, fauna, climatology and geology of a given place. It will include history not so much from the viewpoint of the current residents, but from the viewpoint of the prior residents and their descendants (if any). In this course we will learn how humans first migrated to the area we now live and what megafauna used to live in the area too.
4. Demographically weighted world history as mentioned above. This history is weighted in terms of the proportion of current and historical civilizations. In this scenario, Americans would spend most of the time learning about China, India, Middle East, Africa and also Europe. It would include aspects of what life was like for ordinary people.
5. Special interest Area Studies
This would include all history that does not fall neatly into any of the other 4 categories. Ideally, all Americans should be required to do one or more of these kinds of studies. Suppose they picked Tahiti and the Tahitian people or the Yamana in Tierra del Fuego. It could also be the History of Appalachia for people not living there, or descendant of people living there. Or it be on the Melungeons or the Roma people. They would learn about it focusing on the perspectives of the current or prior residents and would include primary source material.
6. Other Special interest Studies
This could be something not strictly related to a particularly geography or ethnic group. For example, it could be the history of sea navigation or climate change. I suppose everyone should be required to do research on such a topic.
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The problem with this model is that unfortunately not everyone is equally significant. We’d be spending most of our time studying the lives of powerless peasant multitudes, which would explain very little as to why the world is the way it is. The ordinary poor person lacks enough power to affect society significantly enough to be studied. For one, even in the last century there’s not enough written about peasants to write a good social history in some areas.
I also disagree that only historians from a particular society should write about it. That’s a sure way for mythology and nationalism to infect everything.
And I never said all Indians were hunter gatherers. Damn.
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I’d buy it.
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@ Abagond
I wonder if you’ve looked at the ‘Big History’ course that was launched at this Ted Talk: (http://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history.html). It’s taught in a number of Australian and American schools.
David Christian – the guy who founded it – wanted to design a course that would cover all of history. The course is built around a timeline based on ‘threshholds of complexity’:
– The Big Bang – 13.7 billion years ago
– Stars form
– New chemical elements form
– Earth and the solar system forms
– Life begins. The earliest forms of life – organic molecules form. Through natural selection these evolve into complex life forms such as our primate ancestors.
– Humans appear
– Agriculture appears
– The modern revolution
It puts human beings into context – i.e. our history only takes up a really small part of the history of the universe.
At the same time, Christian states that humans are the most complex beings on Earth and (based on available evidence ) the known universe.
I still prefer you proposed history course for school students. I think ‘Big History’ is an interesting concept though.
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The only way this happens is if the caucasoid global collective is overthrown. Until that long prayed for event occurs. World His story will be taught from the western perspective.
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Good post.
This inter-disciplinary way of approaching history brings in a bigger and better understanding of humankind’s past.
I like the equal representation of the “of everyone-that-ever-lived” idea which is given structure by a table contents. Also, introducing the greater biophysical world (the universe and beginnings of life on earth, etc) would also give perspective. Wordynerdy is right when she says “human history only takes up a really small part of the history of the universe.”
However, when Abagond says:
— Caution, please — because this brings in narrow economic concepts of measurement, and this subsumes ALL human activity under Western notions of neo-classical economics. There are then dangers in:
1. “quantifying” who or where is backward and poor, and,
2. fusing the notion of States with our modern understanding of business.
After all, different countries take different paths of development or “progress”.
http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/02/26/the-rise-and-fall-of-cliometrics-and-the-coming-rise-of-cliodynamics/
Demographically-weighted history could then be told as the single inevitable path to globalization…
http://sociology.emory.edu/faculty/globalization/theories01.html
I don’t mean to say that war, technological advancements, city over country and so on shouldn’t be incorporated in this history.
Not at all: I mean that each society and time period has to be approached according to its own prevailing social/political conditions in order to explain the economies of each one.
******************************************
Along with order and scope, there is also the question of context and style to orientate anyone who wants to understand the history of the people telling it. To keep them interested and caring.
As a for instance — students (or anyone interested) need FLAVOUR along with details about who, where and how. Some “old-fashioned” story-telling methods might be needed to know, for example how…
“…Louis XIV comes in relation to Napoleon, or Dante in relation to Machiavelli. A feeling for chronology, gradually acquired, should help to dispel confusion…. but plain narrative should also open out quite naturally into spectacular scenes, landscapes and panorama. we are in specific places – Venice, Bordeaux, London. And as pupils come to understand time, they need to learn vocabulary, so as to be precise about words, ideas and things…. Require familiarity with essential dates; show when prominent, important…people lived. Put them in their context.”
(Fernand Braudel, from the preface of “A History of Civilizations”)
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Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
“technologically advanced societies (they can support more people)
written accounts over oral ones (literate societies tend to be larger)”
Very good point.
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Legion? what mean?
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I see. This subject would certainly get lost under a heading like “stuff”.
Margaret Thatcher: “stuff”. lol!
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That Dalit woman in red has a huge black eye. Poor girl.
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Ames, oh you’re right, yes, poor thing, she’s been punched in the eye….
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@Legion,
I use the search function a lot to find an article. I usually remember enough words about the article to find the one I am looking for, even for ones like this blog title.
I don’t get why there is “other stuff”.
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@Abagond stop being apart of the racism industry! That goes to the rest of you lemmings for hate…. Here is another strong black man who tells it like it is 🙂
You don’t like David Carroll how about Mr. Alfonso Rachel. The guy tells it like it is….We need Mr. Carroll and him to start a rival association to finally put to death that racist NAACP! Watch, Listen and Learn!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLDiRpOxhqE)
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Wow, that poor woman does have a black eye. WTH?
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I just read about the Dalits, they are at the bottom of the caste system in India. This is so tragic and sad. These poor people are treated like leppers. This is so heartbreaking.
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rofl, the naacp was created by whites so complain to them that it is racist and hate them for creating it. wtf is that tommys brother rofl.
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Dang! I surely thought October ended days ago. 😦
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@mstoogood4yall
How does it feel to be duped by your liberal slavemasters? Oh wait he is just an Uncle Tom lol You don’t want racism to end…You don’t want to improve the black community, do you? You want to keep blacks dependent, poor and ignorant…smh
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rofl wtf, liberal slavemaster, lol I don’t trust liberals either. lol at the assumptions no I want the black community to be independent and empowered by education and group economics. anyways i’m done talking to u.
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” You don’t want racism to end…You don’t want to improve the black community, do you?”
******* ******* ******* *******
You really should’ve stuck to just being a month instead of a lame commenter!
I heard that November, December and the other sage months have soured on you (October) plus your racist agenda and have voted to release you from the 2014 and subsequent calenders to replace you with a more viable month – AND a new name, “Nocommenting” …. as a reminder to other months to stay within their assigned roles – keeping track of the days and weeks in a year. After all, that’s what months are SUPPOSED to do.
The last thing the YEARS want to see (and deal with) are uppity, wayward, clueless and delusional months who don’t know their place!
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[…] "A demographically weighted world history would cover times and places in proportion to the number of people who lived in them. The idea is that, as much as possible, every person who has ever lived would be equally represented in its pages. For example, instead of spending 50% to 75% of its pages on the West, like most “world” histories written by Westerners seem to do, it would spend only 25%. The other 75% would be used to cover – the other 75% of the world. Western colonialism would be told from both sides. “How many people did it affect?” would determine what got covered and what did not." […]
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@mstoogood4yall
October seems to want you to be a liberal more than you want to be one. ROFL. I think he has been told on several occasions by different commenters that they don’t trust liberals or conservatives yet his repeat them is…..”You liberal lovers or lefty.” ROFL
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^ bahwahah its always funny how trolls make it into something about the left I remember he attacked rick with the same u must be a liberal nonsense. As if we all are liberals just because we don’t agree with the right, yea because apparently we are all on this rollercoaster of either being right or left as if there Is no middle or outside. I guess some ppl love to put ppl into boxes and either u are for or against, as if there is no middle ground smh. I don’t consider myself a liberal or a conservative I like certain things from both and can’t stand certain things from both.
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I don’t know if I agree about the Native Americans not having enough to compete with India or China. Two continents and the variety of develop systems of government they had are intriguing enough to warrant very close study.
Asplund, you are missing out if you take out the history of peasants. You would only study the upper class which yes like a drop of water causes ripples, but without the rest of the sea that ripple is a small splatter. So much is missed because we don’t really know about the peasant class.
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Total History – History of Existence/Universe (current)
Note – Why is the “known” Universe only allegedly 13 billion years old (units of our planets rotation cycle)
As I’ve found most processes involve cycles , what would be the timeframe for a complete universe cycle?
And how does this relate to infinity/eternity?
Local History – Solar And/or Terran(earth)
or ultralocal – specific to geographic location.
Population/Societies Centric – encompassing geographic regions.
Also dependent upon the evolutionary development level of said species – our species currently only knows of ourselves as capable to recording (primarily writing) a history.
And Even then we can observe different stages of development.
What will we or this planet look like a thousand ,million ,billion years from now?
Will it matter,can it,?
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I doubt you want to improve the black community more than you just want blacks to stop saying negative things about their white counterparts. Considering how you also might consider crime and poverty in the black community to be a part of their “culture,” you’d probably want them to embrace white culture wholeheartedly, which is viewed as “good” in contrast to your perspective of black culture.
BTW, that October gimmick has a pretty short shelf life. I thought that by now the person behind it would have moved on to November, December, January, etc.
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suprabuddha at https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/demographically-weighted-world-history/#comment-200322
said
“The only way this happens is if the caucasoid global collective is overthrown.
Until that long prayed for event occurs. World His story will be taught from the western perspective.”
One should consider that while in time span (hundreds of years – centuries ) of history this in some form is inevitable you,I,we may well never live to see the day and even those in the midst of such an event will not have the perspective (requiring a far greater lifespan then members of our species currently have).
I also find common terminology – caucasoid and western to be inaccurate and archaic , and the activity praying being irrational and delusionally based contributes to its duration – but I don’t blame you nor them for logically the culprit is the inherent nature of this universe and the process of evolution in my limited view.
Asplund said https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/demographically-weighted-world-history/#comment-200285
The problem with this model is that unfortunately not everyone is equally significant. We’d be spending most of our time studying the lives of powerless peasant multitudes, which would explain very little as to why the world is the way it is. The ordinary poor person lacks enough power to affect society significantly enough to be studied. For one, even in the last century there’s not enough written about peasants to write a good social history in some areas.
I also disagree that only historians from a particular society should write about it. That’s a sure way for mythology and nationalism to infect everything.
And I never said all Indians were hunter gatherers. Damn.
Quite a uncompassionate and elitist view of history and the role of individuals in it.
However having not just one’s own view of history expressed may ensure more objectivity
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@ Bulanik I agree, the ‘Big History’ approach would probably still relay a Eurocentric viewpoint.
I do like the idea of a ‘whole of history’ course, though.
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@ Sketchy Cracker
If you are going to comment here, you need to use a name that does not contain a racial slur.
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@ October
Wrong month. Wrong thread. Get a clue.
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In my history studies in the late 60s and early 70s, I found that the younger generation of white historians, many leftists, but some conservatives as well, took up researching the social history of the working class in Europe and America and the history sometimes of particular subgroups therein. One of my professors, although I have to admit I did not like him very much, worked on the topic of merchant seamen in early America.
Although I never became a professional historian, I think I have something to say about the topic of historiography and historical studies. Saliently, there is not and cannot be any such thing as one big history. Each topic has its own life and existence. Sometimes, it may be hard to synthesize two related experiences into a single story, not if both of them involve people whose struggles and tribulations are worthy of recognition.
One topic I have been a little interested in is comparing European Medieval serfdom and chattel slavery in America. The second might not have been possible, not in the form it existed, without the experience of the first, and the two institutions had many things in common. One thing they did not have in common, however, was that the serf had some rights which could not be abrogated. Notably, serfs had the right to marry, the right to religious practice and, above all, the right to be on the land on which they were born. Their obligations to their overlord were defined. The chattel slave had none of these rights. The slave master had few obligations, only limitations, and few of those too.
This is a topic for someone else to work on, though. Anybody who wants it, take it.
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@ Anonymike, agreed that there’s no Single Story to history. However, I do feel that the way history is taught and presented to children especially, has been too narrow.
That’s an interesting question about comparisons of slavery.
I believe the book titled “Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern” (sorry, can’t think of the author) is one kind of book that compares European serfdom with chattel slavery in the Americas. I have not read it, just looked through it.
There’s is a book around that does compare Russian serfdom to American slavery, but I can’t remember the title.
I believe the argument used to explain this lack of interest in this comparison was that there was no cause for comparison as enslaved Africans were another race, from another continent, whereas Russian serfs were Russians and they were part of a social system that would run its course.
Thus, nothing to compare!
There is also relatively little written that closely examines, for instance, the history of non-Muslims under Muslim powers (e.g. Greeks as slaves under Ottoman domination), traditional slavery as practiced in African societies (which is by and large not slavery as we have come to imagine it), as well as darkness surrounding Arab slavery.
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Anonymike, I think it is this one: Unfree Labour: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom by Peter Kolchin. A proper comparative history, from what the blurb says:
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Doing this might also even improve our understanding of European history. I’ve been reading some books on the Huns by Hyun Jin Kim where he points out the extraordinary contributions the Huns and other Inner Asian peoples made to European culture in the Middle Ages. One of his main points is that to see those contributions you have to study Inner Asian history. Europe and Inner Asia have had a lot of close interactions throughout history, and Inner Asian peoples certainly did not consider Europe to be completely separate from their region.
By neglecting Inner Asian history, Western historians have been oblivious to and whitewashing many aspects of their own history.
Another good source is MedievalPOC, about people of color in Medieval Europe:
http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/
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@Erika Butler
“…Inner Asian peoples certainly did not consider Europe to be completely separate from their region.”
Good point.
Thanks for the People of Color in European Art History link.
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