problems with periodization
Answers
Answered by
0
1
01. Problems of PeriodizationOverview
Periodization refers to the way that historians divide the past into distinct eras.Like storytelling, history writing requires a structure, and periodization is one of the maintechniques used by historians to create structure. Yet the past is fluid, complex, andcontinuous, so any attempt to divide it into neat chronological chunks is bound to beartificial. Periodization always does violence to the complex reality of the past, and eventhe most careful and most honest attempts at dividing up the past involve some distortion.Any scheme must compromise between the often contradictory demands of clarity,coherence, accuracy, and honesty.The challenge of finding an appropriate scheme of periodization is particularlycomplex in world history, which tries to construct a coherent account of the history of allhuman societies.
Problems of Periodization in World History
The task of breaking the past into manageable, labeled, chunks of time raisesseveral sorts of problems. We can classify them as theoretical, organizational, and ethical.
Theoretical Problems
Periodization poses theoretical problems because any chronological schemehighlights some aspects of the past and obscures others. While a historian of gendermight look for eras in which the relative status and power of women and men changed(the granting of suffrage to women, perhaps, or the emergence of patriarchal socialrelations in early agrarian societies), a historian of war might be more interested intechnological changes that transformed military conflict (such as the use of gunpowder orthe appearance of the first organized armies), while a historian of religion might look to
Similar questions
English,
7 months ago
Math,
7 months ago
Social Sciences,
7 months ago
Math,
1 year ago
Biology,
1 year ago