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Universal history is basic to the Western tradition of historiography
Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
, especially the Abrahamic wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal history is the presentation of the history of mankind as a whole, as a coherent unit.

a class="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m3828480",this)' onMouseout='hide("m3828480")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Greco-Roman_world">Greco-Roman antiquity
Greco-Roman world

The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Graeco-Roman when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries who culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient Gree...
, the first universal history was written by Ephorus
Ephorus

Ephorus or Ephoros , of Kyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, was an Ancient Greece historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the great's offer to join him on his Alexander the great#Period_of_conque...
 (fl. 4th century BC). This work has been lost, but its influence can be seen in the ambitions of Polybius
Polybius

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC....
 (203–120 BC) and Diodorus (fl.






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Universal history is basic to the Western tradition of historiography
Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
, especially the Abrahamic wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal history is the presentation of the history of mankind as a whole, as a coherent unit.

Ancient examples


Ancient authors

In Greco-Roman antiquity
Greco-Roman world

The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Graeco-Roman when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries who culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient Gree...
, the first universal history was written by Ephorus
Ephorus

Ephorus or Ephoros , of Kyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, was an Ancient Greece historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the great's offer to join him on his Alexander the great#Period_of_conque...
 (fl. 4th century BC). This work has been lost, but its influence can be seen in the ambitions of Polybius
Polybius

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC....
 (203–120 BC) and Diodorus (fl. 1st century BC) to give comprehensive accounts of their worlds. Later, universal history provided an influential lens on the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire in such works as Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
's Ecclesiastical History
Church History (Eusebius)

The Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea was a fourth-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Christianity from the first century....
, Augustine's City of God, and Orosius
Orosius

Paulus Orosius was a Christianity historian, theology and disciple of Augustine of Hippo who came from Gallaecia , probably from the capital city Bracara Augusta....
' History Against the Pagans.

During the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. The Han Dynasty was ruled by the family known as the Liu clan who had peasant origins....
 (202 BCE – 220 CE) of China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, Sima Qian
Sima Qian

Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography because of his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , an overview of the history of China covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of Han China ....
 (145–86 BC) was the first Chinese historian to attempt a universal history—from the earliest mythological origins
Chinese mythology

File:Nine-Dragons1.jpgChinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written form....
 of his civilization to his present day
History of the Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty , founded by the rebel peasant leader Emperor Gaozu of Han ,From the Shang Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty dynasties, Chinese rulers were referred to in later records by their posthumous names, while emperors of the Tang Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty dynasties were referred to by their temple names, and emperors of the Ming...
—in his Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian

The Records of the Grand Historian, also known in English language by the Chinese name Shiji , written from 109 BC to 91 BC, was the magnum opus of Sima Qian, in which he recounted China history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time....
. Although his generation was the first in China to discover the existence of kingdoms in Central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
 and India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
, his work did not attempt to cover the history of these regions.

The Bible as universal history

The first five books of the Bible constitute a primary example of such a history. To the extent that the Pentateuch presents itself as an account of mankind as a whole, from creation to the death of Moses, it is universal history. The story progresses according to a universal principle: the Bible posits that the history of mankind is governed by Yawveh, and that his will is manifest in every event that takes place. The destiny of all mankind, according to this idea, is governed by man's relationship with God. This idea naturally flows into the story of the Children of Israel, whose patriarchs conversed with God and made various covenants with Him. These covenants governed mankind's destiny. This idea extends into the New Testament
New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, which posits that the sacrifice of Jesus now affects every person, and every generation since his resurrection, into the limitless future.

Universal histories and chronicles in the Middle Ages


Europe

The universal chronicle
Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
 (or world chronicle), tracing history from the beginning of the world up to the present, was an especially popular genre of historiography
Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
 in medieval Western Europe
Western Europe

Western Europe refers to the countries in the western most half of Europe. This concept has had different meanings, political and cultural as well as geographical issues have influenced the area....
. The universal chronicle differs from the ordinary chronicle in its much broader chronological and geographical scope, giving, in principle, a continuous account of the progress of world history from the creation of the world up to the author's own times, but in practice often narrowing down to a more limited geographical range as it approaches those times.

The Chronica
Chronicon (Eusebius)

The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in 325 AD....
 of Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
 (c. 275
275

Events...
–339
339

Events...
) is considered to be the starting point of this tradition. The second book of this work consisted of a set of concordance tables (Chronici canones) that for the first time synchronized the several concurrent chronologies in use with different peoples. Eusebius' chronicle became known to the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 West through the translation by Jerome
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 (c. 347
347

Events...
–420
420

Sorry, no overview for this topic
).

Universal chronicles are sometimes organized around a central ideological theme, such as the Augustinian idea of the tension between the heavenly and the earthly state, which plays a major role in Otto von Freising's Historia de duabus civitatibus. In other cases, any obvious theme may be lacking. Some universal chronicles bear a more or less encyclopedic
Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
 character, with many digressions on non-historical subjects, as is the case with the Chronicon of Helinand of Froidmont
Helinand of Froidmont

Helinand of Froidmont was a The Middle Ages poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer....
.

Other notable universal chroniclers of the Medieval West include Bede
Bede

Bede , , was a monasticism at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria....
 (c. 672 or 673–735), the Christherre-Chronik
Christherre-Chronik

The Christherre-Chronik is a 13th-century world chronicle from Th?ringen, written in Middle High German rhyming couplets. It was written by a churchman in the service of Henry III, Markgrave of Meissen, and may be seen as attempting a spiritual answer to the courtly world chronicle of Rudolf von Ems....
, Helinand of Froidmont
Helinand of Froidmont

Helinand of Froidmont was a The Middle Ages poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer....
 (c. 1160—1237?), Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and has the reputation of being one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages....
 (c. 560–636), Jans der Enikel
Jans der Enikel

Jans der Enikel, i.e. "Jans the Grandson" was a Vienna poet and historian of the late 13th century. He wrote a Weltchronik and a F?rstenbuch , both in Middle High German verse....
, Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English historians in the Middle Ages, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire....
 (c. 1200-1259), Ranulf Higdon
Ranulf Higdon

Ranulf Higdon , was an England chronicler and a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Werburgh in Chester, wherein he lived, it is said, for sixty-four years, and died at a good old age, probably in 1363....
 (c. 1280-1363), Rudolf von Ems
Rudolf von Ems

Rudolf von Ems was a mediaeval German epic poetry poet....
, Sigebert of Gembloux
Sigebert of Gembloux

Sigebert of Gembloux , was a medieval author, known mainly as a pro-Imperial historian of a universal chronicle, opposed to the expansive papacy of Gregory VII and Pope Pascal II....
 (c. 1030–1112), Otto von Freising (c. 1114–1158), and Vincent of Beauvais
Vincent of Beauvais

The Dominican Order friar Vincent of Beauvais wrote the Speculum Maius, the main encyclopedia that was used in the Middle Ages....
 (c. 1190-1264?).

Christian writers as late as Bossuet
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Jacques-B?nigne Bossuet was a France bishop and theology, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French language stylist....
 (in his Discours sur l'histoire universelle,1679) were still reflecting on and continuing the Medieval tradition of universal history.

Middle East

In the medieval Islamic world
Islamic Golden Age

The Islamic Golden Age, also sometimes known as the Islamic Renaissance, was traditionally dated from the 700 A.D. to 1200 A.D.Common Era, but has been extended to the 15th and 16th centuries by some scholars....
, universal history in this vein was taken up by Muslim historians
Historiography of early Islam

The historiography of early Islam refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary sources materials and the organization of these sources into a narrative timeline....
 such as al-Tabari
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was one of the earliest, most prominent and famous Persian people historian and tafsir,who wrote exclusively in Arabic , most famous for his History of the Prophets and Kings and Tafsir al-Tabari....
 and Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun or Ibn Khaldoun...
. The 13th century Jami al-Tawarikh
Jami al-Tawarikh

The Jami al-tawarikh or Universal History is an Iranian work of literature and history written by Rashid al-Din at the start of the 14th century....
 ("Compendium of Chronicles") by Rashid al-Din
Rashid al-Din

Rashid al-Din Tabib also Rashid ad-Din Fadhlullah Hamadani , 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 ....
 (now held at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom....
) and the Muqaddimah
Muqaddimah

The Muqaddimah, or the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun , or the Prolegomena in Greek language, is a book written by the North African historian Ibn Khaldun in 1377 which records an early Muslim view of universal history....
 by Ibn Khaldun are significant example of this tradition.

Modern examples

An early European project was the Universal History
Universal History (Sale et al)

The Universal History was a 65-volume universal history of the world published in London between 1747 and 1768. Contributors included George Sale, George Psalmanazar, Archibald Bower, George Shelvocke, John Campbell and John Swinton....
 of George Sale
George Sale

George Sale was an Orientalist and practicing solicitor. Besides helping with this project, he was author of The General Dictionary, in ten volumes, folio, but is widely known by his translation of the Qur'an....
 and others, written in the mid-eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, universal histories proliferated. Philosophers such as Kant
KANT

KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in Global field function fields, and in local fields....
, Schiller and Hegel, and political philosophers such as Marx, presented general theories of history that shared essential characteristics with the Biblical account: they conceived of history as a coherent whole, governed by certain basic characteristics or immutable principles. For example, Hegel presented the idea that progress in history is actually the progress not of mankind's material existence, but of humanity's spiritual development. Concomitantly, Hegel presented a developmental theory of how the human spirit progresses: through the dialectic
Dialectic

Dialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues....
 of synthesis and antithesis. Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
's theory of dialectic materialism is essential to his general concept of history: that the struggle to dominate the means of production governs all historical development.

Popular conceptions and universal history


Basic ideas of universal history are so prevalent that they are difficult to separate from basic Western assumptions of how the world is or should be. Outside some intellectual
Intellectual

An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intelligence and Critical thinking, either in their profession or for the benefit of personal pursuits....
s, such ideas continue to predominate as core assumptions. The teleological aspects of universal history remain entrenched. Many people believe that the events of our world, and more specifically, the events within the human community, are directed toward an end or tending toward an end of some sort. 'Linear' pre-suppositions of the theory are no less prevalent. Most people living in Western cultures conceive of time, and therefore of history, as a line or an arrow, that is proceeding from past to future, toward some end. The idea that time may be cyclical, or that there is no fundamental "end" to the human struggle, is unfamiliar.

Historiography


The roots of historiography
Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
 in the nineteenth century are bound up with the concept that history written with a strong connection to the primary sources could, somehow, be integrated with "the big picture", i.e. to a general, universal history. For example, Leopold Von Ranke
Leopold von Ranke

Leopold von Ranke was a Germany historian of the 19th century, and frequently considered one of the founders of modern source-based history. Ranke set the tone for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources , an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics and a commitment...
, probably the pre-eminent historian of the nineteenth century, founder of "Rankean positivism," the classic mode of historiography that now stands against postmodernism
Postmodernism

Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement'. While "modern" itself refers to something "related to the present", the movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives....
, attempted to write a Universal History at the close of his career. The work of Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler

Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West in which he puts forth a cyclical pattern theory of the rise and decline of civilizations....
 and Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee

Arnold Joseph Toynbee Order of the Companions of Honour was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global perspective....
 are two examples of attempts to integrate primary source -based history and Universal History. Spengler's work is more general; Toynbee created a theory that would allow the study of "civilizations" to proceed with integration of source-based history writing and Universal History writing. Both writers attempted to incorporate teleological theories into general presentations of the history.

See also

  • The End of History and the Last Man
    The End of History and the Last Man

    The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay "The End of History?", published in the international affairs journal The National Interest....
  • Metanarrative
    Metanarrative

    In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge....
  • Historical Materialism
    Historical materialism

    Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx . Marx himself never used the term but referred to his approach as "the materialist conception of history."...


External articles and further reading

  • Robert Bonnaud
    Robert Bonnaud

    Robert Bonnaud is an anti-colonialist historian and professor of history at the Paris 7 - Denis Diderot University.In 1957, following the advice of his friend Pierre Vidal-Naquet, he published in Esprit an article entitled La Paix des Nementchas , where he denounced wiktionary:massacre he witnessed made by the French army in Alger...
    , The System of History, Fayard 1989, 334 pages (not yet translated).
  • Guha, Ranajit
    Ranajit Guha

    Ranajit Guha is a historian of South Asia who was greatly influential in the Subaltern studies, and edited several early numbers of the group's anthology....
    , "" (Italian Academy Lectures), Columbia University Press 2002.
  • Sale, George, Archibald Bower, and George Psalmanazar, "". Millar, 1747.
  • Wilson, Horace Hayman, "". 1835.
  • Jones, Lynds Eugene, George Palmer Putnam, and Simeon Strunsky, "". G. P. Putnam's sons, 1907. 313 pages.
  • Fisher, George Park, "". Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, and company, 1885. 674 pages.
  • Georg Weber, "". Hickling, Swan and Brewer, 1859. 559 pages. (ed. Translated by M. Behr).
  • Ollier, Edmund, "" Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1885.
  • Clare, Israel Smith, "". R. S. Peale, J. A. Hill, 1897.
  • Hegel, GWF. Philosophy of Right. TM Knox, tr. Oxford UP: New York, 1967. para. 341-360 (pp. 216-223). As a point of clarification, Hegel writes of World History, although this is somewhat identical to Universal History.
  • Mink, Louis O. “Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument.” In Historical Understanding. Brian Fay, et al, eds. Cornell UP: Ithaca, 1987. pp. 182-203.
  • Kant, Immanuel. “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.” In Philosophical Writings. Ernest Behler, ed. Lewis W Beck, tr. Continuum: New York, 1986. pp. 249-262.
  • White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Johns Hopkins UP, 1975.