Lesson Purpose
Historians 'periodize.' That is, they categorise historical time by looking for turning points. Periodizing is an important analytical tool that real historians use. This lesson helps you to frame major changes to understand periodization in human history while introducing you to major changes and trends in the modern era. In this lesson, you will think about periodizing the history of the Universe in a way other than using thresholds of increasing complexity. You'll think about periodizing from the perspective of individuals, and you'll think about how they would periodize human history to tell a particular story.
The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To be able to reframe historical trends and events by periodizing them in different ways; 2.) To understand that methods of periodization can convey particular themes while obscuring others.
The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To be able to reframe historical trends and events by periodizing them in different ways; 2.) To understand that methods of periodization can convey particular themes while obscuring others.
Activity 1 - Periodizing Big History
Activity Objectives
As part of the timeline activities that you have completed in previous lessons, you learned about the idea of periodizing history. In this activity, you’ll think about how you would periodize the past and how periodizing something—in this case, the Big History timeline—reframes it. Looking at periodization from multiple angles helps you to become more critical consumers of the historical accounts you will encounter. Activity Tasks
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Activity 2 - A Day in the Life
Activity Objectives
In this activity, you will think about what people’s lives were like at different periods in human history. Looking at a day in the life of people over the course of history is another way of periodizing the past. In addition, thinking about the past from the point of view of others helps to understand the causes and consequences of many events in history. Activity Tasks
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Activity 3 - Threshold 8: The Modern Revolution
Activity Objectives
In this video, David Christian provides an introduction to the eighth threshold of increasing complexity, the Modern Revolution. Knowing how and why the Modern Revolution developed is critical for your understanding of this threshold’s emergent properties—globalization, increased control over Earth’s resources, and rapid population growth—which will be the focus of much of this lesson. Activity Tasks
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The Modern Revolution has created a world very different from the one students saw in the age of the foragers and the agrarian era. The connection of the four world zones, expanding networks of exchange, and new sources of energy have allowed humans to become a global species and the dominant life form in the biosphere.
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Activity 4 - How Would You Periodize Human History?
Activity Objectives
In this activity, you will use a similar process to the one you used in the opening activity of this lesson, but this time you’ll try to periodize human history. Not only will this get you thinking about the richness of human history, but also the different ways in which you might tell stories about human history. This reinforces the idea that periodization is really an analytical tool in history, one that can help people understand and explain events of the past. Activity Tasks
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