Columbia's History of the World

By Paul Rice

I'm sure I've pointed out many times that I am reading Columbia's History of the World, edited by John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, which I started in late 1989. Book has about 1166 pages of text, including 91 maps, and another 100 pages of supporting material. Estimate about 470,000 words!

My original plan was to read 3 pages per day and finish it in a year. I started out well, and was on schedule for a few months, but then other matters intervened. I pick it up for a few months every year. A major stumbling block was the middle ages, which were awfully slow.

As I've often said, a "History of the Universe" would be an astronomy book. A "History of the Galaxy" would be an astronomy book. A "History of the Solar System" would be an astronomy book. A "History of the Earth" would be a geology book. A "History of Life" would be a biology book, a "History of Human Life" would be a paleontology book, etc. You have to get down to 10 to the negative 29th power before you reach a subset so specific we would recognize it as human history. [If you'd like to see my derivation of this, ask and I will send.]

Here is the Table of Contents. Note the reverse logarithmic scale in terms of time. I'll add that chapter 1 is astronomy, chapter 2 is geology, chapter 3 is biology, chapter 4 is paleontology...

Book was written in 1972, and hence has little political correctness. It is overly Eurocentric.

Note that it is not strictly chronological, as it would then have to cover everything that happened in the world in 1534 BCE, then 1533, then 1532. Instead, it covers one area, which may be geographical, cultural, technological, etc, then goes and covers the same time in a different area. Excellent geographical examples include the continual bouncing between ' Europe and mid-East for several chapters (a millennium or so)' and then 'India or China for one chapter (a millennium or so)'. A different flavor of example is the Renaissance. It starts in chapter 39. The next 20 chapters or so then each cover the same time period over and over again, from a different perspective. As an amateur astronomer, I always thought the spark that began the Renaissance and Enlightenment were men like Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo, and the book was frustrating to me because it got all the way to the settlement of the new world and just before the American revolution before it went back and introduced these men.

I am now in chapter 72.

PART I THE ANCIENT WORLD

Before History
1. The Earth and the Universe
2. The Geological Evolution of the Earth
3. The Evolution of Life
4. Human Evolution

The Ancient Near East
5. Mesopotamia
6. Egypt
7. The New Levant
8. Gods and Men

Asian Civilization
9. Early India
10. Early China
11. The Chinese Empire: The Formative Period

Classical Antiquity: Jews and Greeks
12. The New Culture: 1200-200 BC
13. The Great Divide
14, The Century of the Minor Powers
15. Persia and Athens
16. The Fourth Century to the Death of Alexander
17. The Hellenistic World

Classical Antiquity: Rome
18. The Roman Republic
19. The Augustan Empire
20. The Later Roman Empire
21. Late Roman Society and Culture

PART II THE WORLD 500-1500

The Arabs
22. The Arabs and the Rise of Islam
23. The Disruption and Decline of the Arab Empire
24. Islamic Civilization
25. The Jews in the Arab World

Asia and Africa
26. Sub-Saharan Africa
27. The Chinese Empire: The Great Era
28. The Chinese Empire: Foreign Rulers and National Restoration
29. Early Japan
30. India
31. Southeast Asia

Medieval Europe
32. The Early Middle Ages
33. The High Middle Ages
34. The Late Middle Ages
35. The Jews in Medieval Europe

Byzantium
36. Early Byzantium
37. Later Byzantium
38. The Slavs and Early Russia

PART III TOWARD MODERNITY

The Renaissance and Reformation in Europe
39. The State System of the Italian Renaissance
40. Humanism and Society
41. Renaissance Art
42. The Reformation: Doctrine
43. The Reformation: Society
44. The Counter Reformation

Building the Early Modern State
45. The Golden Age of Spain
46. The Rise of the Dutch Republic
47. The Collapse of France
48. Elizabethans and Puritans
49. The Thirty Years' War
50. The Rise of Modern Political Thought

Toward One World
51. The Commercial Powers
52. The Ottoman Empire
53. European Voyages of Exploration
54. India: 1500-1750
55. Japan and China
56. Aztec and Inca Civilizations
57. Spain and Portugal in America
58. The Settlement of North America

The Enlightenment
59. The Scientific Revolution
60. Society and Politics
61. Science versus Theology

PART IV THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

Europe: The Great Powers
62. Forming National States
63. The Age of Louis XIV
64. Europe in the Eighteenth Century

Revolution in the Western World
65. The American Revolution
66. The French Revolution

Reaction and Rebellion
67. The Napoleonic Era
68. The United States: 1789-1823
69. Liberation Movements in Europe
70. Liberation Movements in Latin America
71. The Near East

The Industrial Revolution
72. The Industrial Revolution in England
73. The Spread of Industrialization
74. A World Economy

New Forces, New Ideas
75. Romanticism and After
76. From Liberalism to Democracy
77. The Rise of Socialism
78. The Antislavery Impulse in America
79. Unification Movements

PART V THE MODERN WORLD

Toward Disintegration
80. Imperialism in Africa
81. American Imperialism
82. China Under the Impact of the West
83. India Under British Rule
84. Darwin and Freud
85. The Great Powers to the Verge of War

The Great World War: 1914-1945
86. World War I
87. The Russian Revolution and the Stalin Era
88. The United States: Prosperity and Depression
89. Modern China
90. Modernizing Japan
91. Nationalism in India
92. Europe Between the Wars
93. World War II

The Brooding Present
94. Europe Since World War II
95. The Cold War
96. Latin America in Ferment
97. The Middle East Since 1940
98. Africa Since 1945
99. New Asia
100. The United States Since World War II
101. The State of Culture Today.

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