Talk:Human history

Middle Ages (Western Focus, etc)

It seems that despite the African, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern subsections, the Middle Ages section still focuses a bit too much on the Western world (or at this age, specificallly Europe). The section makes little mention of Chinese changes, a major country in history. The sections on the Middle East, the Americas, and Southeast Asia should be expanded further. Finally, compounding this issue is the fact that the "main article" leads to the Middle Ages page, which focuses almost entirely on Europe. I recommend the main article is changed to the Postclassical Era for a more global perspective (despite the article's current shortcomings). InvaderCito (talk) 00:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I thank UnvoicedConsonant for providing the change to the main article. However, some of the subsections still require a little more expansion, so I'd like to keep that aware. — InvaderCito (talk) 16:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

History of Islam section

While the content of the History of Islam section is ok, I question its inclusion in the overall article. It seems a little out out of place and I would suggest it be removed and included in a separate article on the History of Religion where it would be more meaningful. As it is, it seems like a plug for a particular religion, which would begin to invite such from others in an otherwise good article on the History of the World. Unless equally important religions are also given coverage, it should be moved to a more appropriate article location. Wallenpb wiki (talk) 21:34, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

"Postclassical Era"

Recently, in this article, the heading "Middle Ages" was replaced with the heading "Postclassical Era". This new designation for "Middle Ages" evidently seeks to distinguish the Middle Ages from an earlier "Classical Era", but the latter expression doesn't appear in this article as a comparable heading. Use of the expression "Postclassical Era" would seem to beg for discussion of a "Classical Era" as the object of contrast; the meanings are not self-evident, and the separate article, "Postclassical Era" does not replace an adequate explanation of these concepts within "History of the world". Nihil novi (talk) 08:30, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It's awkward, because "Classical Antiquity" refers almost exclusively to the Mediterranean, whereas "Postclassical Era" is deliberately defined to be world-wide. So the terms, though similar, are not analogous. It is true, though that the article did not contain the phrase "Classical Antiquity," which was an unfortunate omission, so I added it, in the Ancient History section.68.98.129.253 (talk) 22:42, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

History of the world ≠ History of humanity

Rephrase the introductory sentence. JDiala (talk) 07:44, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Or perhaps change the title? I've always been baffled by how the title and content here don't seem to match. I've never, in all my years as an English native speaker and studies as an English major heard of "the world" being equated to "humanity" except perhaps figuratively (e.g. poetically). Wolfdog (talk) 05:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Over the years, there have been extensive discussions (now archived) here on this topic. Consensus was to keep the article name and subject as-is. Though perhaps literally imprecise, the phrase "world history" is extensively used to mean "human history." For example, a Google search for "World History" yields first the following link: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001196.html which is all about human history. 68.98.129.253 (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2014 (UTC) Similarly, a search for "History of the World" yields: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/ which is also all human history.68.98.129.253 (talk) 04:15, 18 January 2014 (UTC)