Pre-modern[edit]

The study of world history, as distinct from national history, has existed in many world cultures.
However, early forms of world history were not truly global and were limited to only the regions
known by the historian.
In Ancient China, Chinese world history, that of China and the surrounding people of East Asia was
based on the dynastic cycle articulated by Sima Qian circa 100 BC. Sima Qian's model is based on
the Mandate of Heaven. Rulers rise when they united China, then are overthrown when such
dynasty became corrupt.[8] Each new dynasty begins virtuous and strong, but then decays, provoking
the transfer of Heaven's mandate to a new ruler. The test of virtue in a new dynasty is success in
being obeyed by China and neighboring barbarians. After 2000 years Sima Qian's model still
dominates scholarship, although the dynastic cycle is no longer used for modern Chinese history.[9]
In Ancient Greece, Herodotus (5th century BC), as the founder of Greek historiography, [10] presents
discussions of the customs, geography, and history of Mediterranean peoples, particularly the
Egyptians. His contemporary Thucydides rejected Herodotus's all-embracing approach to history,
offering instead a more precise, sharply focused monograph, dealing not with vast empires over the
centuries but with 27 years of war between Athens and Sparta. In Rome, the vast, patriotic history of
Rome by Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) approximated Herodotean inclusiveness; [11] Polybius (c.200-c.118
BC) aspired to combine the logical rigor of Thucydides with the scope of Herodotus. [12]
Rashīd al-Dīn Fadhl-allāh Hamadānī (1247–1318), was a Persian physician of Jewish origin,
polymathic writer, and historian, who wrote an enormous Islamic history, the Jami al-Tawarikh, in the
Persian language, often considered a landmark in intercultural historiography and a key document
on the Ilkhanids (13th and 14th century).[13] His encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of cultures
from Mongolia to China to the Steppes of Central Eurasia to Persia, the Arabic-speaking lands, and
Europe, provide the most direct access to information on the late Mongol era. His descriptions also
highlight how the Mongol Empire and its emphasis on trade resulted in an atmosphere of cultural
and religious exchange and intellectual ferment, resulting in the transmission of a host of ideas from
East to West and vice versa.
One Muslim scholar, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1409) broke with traditionalism and offered a model of
historical change in Muqaddimah, an exposition of the methodology of scientific history. Ibn Khaldun
focused on the reasons for the rise and fall of civilization, arguing that the causes of change are to
be sought in the economic and social structure of society. His work was largely ignored in the
Muslim world.[14]

Early modern[edit]
During the Renaissance in Europe, history was written about states or nations. The study of history
changed during the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Voltaire described the history of certain ages
that he considered important, rather than describing events in chronological order. History became
an independent discipline. It was not called Philosophia Historiae anymore, but merely history
(Historia). Voltaire, in the 18th century, attempted to revolutionize the study of world history. First,
Voltaire concluded that the traditional study of history was flawed. The Christian Church, one of the
most powerful entities in his time, had presented a framework for studying history. Voltaire, when
writing History of Charles XII (1731) and The Age of Louis XIV (1751), instead choose to focus on
economics, politics, and culture. [15] These aspects of history were mostly unexplored by his
contemporaries and would each develop into their sections of world history. Above all else, Voltaire
regarded truth as the most essential part of recording world history. Nationalism and religion only
subtracted from objective truth, so Voltaire freed himself for their influence when he recorded history.
[16]

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) in Italy wrote Scienza Nuova seconda (The New Science) in 1725,

which argued history as the expression of human will and deeds. He thought that men are historical
entities and that human nature changes over time. Each epoch should be seen as a whole in which
all aspects of culture—art, religion, philosophy, politics, and economics—are interrelated (a point
developed later by Oswald Spengler). Vico showed that myth, poetry, and art are entry points to
discovering the true spirit of a culture. Vico outlined a conception of historical development in which
great cultures, like Rome, undergo cycles of growth and decline. His ideas were out of fashion
during the Enlightenment but influenced the Romantic historians after 1800.
A major theoretical foundation for world history was given by German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel,
who saw the modern Prussian state as the latest (though often confused with the highest) stage of
world development.
G.W.F. Hegel developed three lenses through which he believed world history could be viewed.
Documents produced during a historical period, such as journal entries and contractual agreements,
were considered by Hegel to be part of Original History. These documents are produced by a person
enveloped within a culture, making them conduits of vital information but also limited in their
contextual knowledge. Documents which pertain to Hegel's Original History are classified by modern
historians as primary sources.[17]
Reflective History, Hegel's second lens, are documents written with some temporal distance
separating the event which is discussed in academic writing. What limited this lens, according to
Hegel, was the imposition of the writer's own cultural values and views on the historical event. This
criticism of Reflective History was later formalized by Anthropologist Franz Boa and coined as
Cultural relativism by Alain Locke. Both of these lenses were considered to be partially flawed by
Hegel.[18]
Hegel termed the lens which he advocated to view world history through as Philosophical History. To
view history through this lens, one must analyze events, civilizations, and periods objectively. When
done in this fashion, the historian can then extract the prevailing theme from their studies. This lens
differs from the rest because it is void of any cultural biases and takes a more analytical approach to
history. World History can be a broad topic, so focusing on extracting the most valuable information
from certain periods may be the most beneficial approach. This third lens, as did Hegel's definitions
of the other two, affected the study of history in the early modern period and our contemporary
period.[19]
Another early modern historian was Adam Ferguson. Ferguson's main contribution to the study of
world history was his An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767).[20] According to Ferguson, world
history was a combination of two forms of history. One was natural history; the aspects of our world
which God created. The other, which was more revolutionary, was social history. For him, social
history was the progress humans made towards fulfilling God's plan for humanity. He believed that
progress, which could be achieved through individuals pursuing commercial success, would bring us
closer to a perfect society; but we would never reach one. [21] However, he also theorized that
complete dedication to commercial success could lead to societal collapses—like what happened in
Rome—because people would lose morality. Through this lens, Ferguson viewed world history as
humanity's struggle to reach an ideal society.[22]
Henry Home, Lord Kames was a philosopher during the Enlightenment and contributed to the study
of world history. In his major historical work, Sketches on the History of Man, Kames outlined the
four stages of human history which he observed. [23] The first and most primitive stage was small
hunter-gatherer groups. Then, to form larger groups, humans transitioned into the second stage
when they began to domesticate animals. The third stage was the development of agriculture. This
new technology established trade and higher levels of cooperation amongst sizable groups of
people. With the gathering of people into agricultural villages, laws and social obligations needed to
be developed so a form of order could be maintained. The fourth, and final stage, involved humans
moving into market towns and seaports where agriculture was not the focus. Instead, commerce and
other forms of labor arouse in a society. By defining the stages of human history, Homes influenced
his successors. He also contributed to the development of other studies such as sociology and
anthropology.[24]
The Marxist theory of historical materialism claims the history of the world is fundamentally
determined by the material conditions at any given time – in other words, the relationships which
people have with each other to fulfil basic needs such as feeding, clothing and housing themselves
and their families.[25] Overall, Marx and Engels claimed to have identified five successive stages of
the development of these material conditions in Western Europe.[26] The theory divides the history of
the world into the following periods:[27][28][29][30][31] Primitive communism; Slave society; Feudalism;
Capitalism; and Socialism.
Regna Darnell and Frederic Gleach argue that, in the Soviet Union, the Marxian theory of history
was the only accepted orthodoxy, and stifled research into other schools of thought on history.
[32]
 However, adherents of Marx's theories argue that Stalin distorted Marxism.[33]

Contemporary[edit]
World history became a popular genre in the 20th century with universal history. In the 1920s,
several best-sellers dealt with the history of the world, including surveys The Story of
Mankind (1921) by Hendrik Willem van Loon and The Outline of History (1918) by H. G. Wells.
Influential writers who have reached wide audiences include H. G. Wells, Oswald Spengler, Arnold
J. Toynbee, Pitirim Sorokin, Carroll Quigley, Christopher Dawson,[34] and Lewis Mumford. Scholars
working the field include Eric Voegelin,[35] William Hardy McNeill and Michael Mann.[36] With evolving
technologies such as dating methods and surveying laser technology called LiDAR, contemporary
historians have access to new information which changes how past civilizations are studied.
Spengler's Decline of the West (2 vol 1919–1922) compared nine organic cultures: Egyptian (3400–
1200 BC), Indian (1500–1100 BC), Chinese (1300 BC–AD 200), Classical (1100–400 BC),
Byzantine (AD 300–1100), Aztec (AD 1300–1500), Arabian (AD 300–1250), Mayan (AD 600–960),
and Western (AD 900–1900). His book was a success among intellectuals worldwide as it predicted
the disintegration of European and American civilization after a violent "age of Caesarism," arguing
by detailed analogies with other civilizations. It deepened the post-World War I pessimism in Europe,
and was warmly received by intellectuals in China, India, and Latin America who hoped his
predictions of the collapse of European empires would soon come true. [37]
In 1936–1954, Toynbee's ten-volume A Study of History came out in three separate installments. He
followed Spengler in taking a comparative topical approach to independent civilizations. Toynbee
said they displayed striking parallels in their origin, growth, and decay. Toynbee rejected Spengler's
biological model of civilizations as organisms with a typical life span of 1,000 years. Like Sima Qian,
Toynbee explained decline as due to their moral failure. Many readers rejoiced in his implication (in
vols. 1–6) that only a return to some form of Catholicism could halt the breakdown of western
civilization which began with the Reformation. Volumes 7–10, published in 1954, abandoned the
religious message, and his popular audience shrunk while scholars picked apart his mistakes. [38]
McNeill wrote The Rise of the West (1963) to improve upon Toynbee by showing how the separate
civilizations of Eurasia interacted from the very beginning of their history, borrowing critical skills
from one another, and thus precipitating still further change as adjustment between traditional old
and borrowed new knowledge and practice became necessary. McNeill took a broad approach
organized around the interactions of peoples across the Earth. Such interactions have become both
more numerous and more continual and substantial in recent times. Before about 1500, the network
of communication between cultures was that of Eurasia. The term for these areas of interaction differ
from one world historian to another and include world-system and ecumene. The importance of
these intercultural contacts has begun to be recognized by many scholars. [39]