History Division – Periodization tries to give significance to the passage of time in history, identifying and ordering chronological sequences (periods).
As practiced by historians, it has a long and varied history; as an object of study, it commands neither a formal body of knowledge nor a systematic instruction. For the historian, though not for the archaeologist or anthropologist, periodization does not serve any accepted theoretical function. For, unlike the concept of period in earth sciences or periodicity in physical sciences, the concept of historical period depends more on stipulation than on inference from commonly evidenced accepted. As for modern philosophers of history, both the nominalistically and the neo-idealist have denied that the periods historical events are “real”: the first because a period cannot be said to exist in the sense that a historical event or person exists; the latter because they see the entire ordering of historical materials as a function of the individual historian's mind (Collingwood 1927; Croce [1917] 1960, chapter 7).
Periodization lends itself to a broad typology. In the following account of some of the major periodization schemes in Western history, two major types, among others, are distinguished. They can be conveniently labeled as legal (historical periods are significant as manifestations of the operation of a cosmic, divine, biological or social) and pedagogical (historical periods are significant as didactic or heuristic devices, with the concept of underlying forces being minimized or ignored).
See too: Industrialization of Brazil
In classical antiquity, the ancient myth of four metallic ages (gold, silver, bronze and iron) was reinterpreted for the Greeks by Hesiod (8th century BC). C.) and popularized to the Romans in the poetry of Ovid and Vergil. The cycle itself (periods, Gr.; periodus, L.) figured more in philosophy and cosmology than in history. But at least one historian, through whom cyclical notions were passed on to Machiavelli and other classically influenced writers, used the idea of the cycle: Polybius (c. 203-c. 120 BC). Other influential classical conceptions tried to connect mythic ages to calculable chronologies. The Roman Varro (116-27 a. C.) created a tripartite scheme: the obscure, the fabulous and the historical periods – the last name starting with the first Olympiad (776 a. Ç.).
The two main Christian periodizations, designating earthly events as successive stages of a divinely ordained rhythm, were as follows: (1) A interpretation of Daniel's dreams of four kingdoms (Daniel 2.31ff, 7.17ff), whose content resembled the Hesiodic myth., such as four empires or monarchies successive. The idea of four monarchies – Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Macedonian and Roman – dominated historiography until at least the 16th century.
The Roman Empire, having been designated as enduring to the end of the world, was necessarily seen as continued by the Byzantine and Frankish emperors. Hence the emphasis on courtship periods within the fourth and last empire by dynasties and individual rulers, a chain of meetings that is still a routine periodization in the classroom for a large part of history European. (2) The addition of three periods of St. Augustine to the three periods of 14 generations, from Abraham to Christ, which are established in the Bible (Matthew 1:17). Augustine came to six ages in all, corresponding to the six days of creation – five ages from Adam to Christ and the sixth from Christ to the end of time. The seventh to arrive was the Sabbath day or the millennium. This scheme not only influenced Christian chronographs and chroniclers and, as each age was considered in 1,000 years, it made possible the calculation of the end of the world; it also produced the modern dating conventions.
The rebirth and development of secular learning from the 15th to 18th centuries, in particular the emergence of history as a discipline almost independent of moral philosophy and rhetoric, produced new concepts of periodization. First, contemporary scholarship in law, language, and letters has created an awareness of the discontinuities of the eternal Roman Empire; Post-Classic Latin, for example, was obviously different from Classical Latin. A second period, a middle aevum, originally a theological notion, was postulated.
By the eighteenth century, the new scholarship had set the stage for periodizations as legal as those of their Christian and classical predecessors, but explicitly secular and socially oriented. Under the influence of scientific and geographical discovery, of the discussion about the superiority of the moderns over the and from the spread of anti-absolutist ideas in politics and philosophy, several doctrines aimed at the future. These are conveniently summarized as the idea of progress. History – past, present and future – should be a mirror of the functioning of the successive stages of this idea. On the other hand, the great additions The historical materials that were at hand were considered intelligible only as manifestations of the periodic and progressive development of one or more of the new and illuminated.
French progressive thinkers elaborated their periodization schemes by extending the intellectual vocabulary of progress to the idea of perfectibility, showing a Voltairian disdain for the unenlightened Middle Ages and, at times, predicting a socioeconomic utopia as the period Final. Along these lines, Turgot, 1727-1781, and Saint-Simon, 1760-1825, produced three-step periodizations with considerable subsequent influence.
In the 20th century, several schemes, most of them modifications of the previous ones, exist side by side. Classical Marxism, claiming to have replaced the scientific and legal periodization of Hegel's rhythm of the spirit, divides history in five periods: primitive communism, classical slavery, western and Asian feudalism, capitalism and socialism (communism). These correspond to identifiable stages in the development of the productive forces and the social relations they create. Contemporary Marxist scholars allow for more variety within this framework and hold that it parallels and explains the traditional modern-modern-modern periodization. Various levels of generality of periodization are allowed, including the so-called private periodization within the great accepted epochs (Zhukov, 1960). This rapprochement between pedagogical periodization and legal periodization does not fundamentally obscure the starting points different from each in relation to determinism, inevitability, prediction and other consequences of a belief in laws historical events.
The other two comprehensive legislative periodizations of our time are the works of Oswald Spengler (1918-1922) and Arnold Toynbee (1934-1961). Thematically, they go back to the birth-death cycles common to ancient western and eastern cosmology and have intermittently revived ever since. There are a finite number of historical units: 8 cultures in Spengler, 21 civilizations in Toynbee. Each suffers – inevitably in Spengler, with qualifications and alternatives in Toynbee – four periods of development: birth, growth, aging and death. This periodicity is morphological or physiognomic, descriptive of states in a cycle and does not express the development of any substantive concept such as economic or intellectual advancement.
The numerical periodization mentioned above has also survived, in form but not in reputation, and the lifespan of the patriarchs is no longer their subject. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, newer versions of the count of biological lives appeared to which a numerical value was assigned. The best known was the Austrian 0. Lorenz 'law of three generations' (1886). Three generations make up 100 years; hence the centuries are the spiritual units of history; large-scale events tend to occur every 3x3 or every 6x3 generations, that is, at intervals of 300 and 600 years.
As already indicated, pedagogical periodization is the only scheme generally accepted by modern historians, for more superficial and empty than the commitment to ultimatums that may appear to Marxist critics and theological. Textbooks and university courses treat chronological divisions as national divisions: primarily as manageable and secondarily as significant slices of an issue that cannot be digested as a whole. Obviously, there are reservations about accepting the ancient-medieval-modern scheme and its many subdivisions - almost as many reservations as individual historians. Most of them fall into two broad categories: (1) The acceptance of convenient periodization tends to imply the acceptance of established terms denoting periods (such as Archaic, Middle Ages, Enlightenment, Reconstruction), but not necessarily dates terminals. Especially where terms – such as terms denoting period – are not of contemporary origin (such as Elizabethan, coined two centuries later) or denote relatively diverse habits of thought (such as the Renaissance), historians who use the same terms are likely to assign different end dates to them. Sometimes the terms themselves are questioned – but generally to improve terminology, not periodization (Lower Middle Ages for the Dark Ages, for example). (2) Specialized studies tend to replace a specific temporal structure, derived from changes in the characteristics of the studied subject. The history of, say, the pricing structure would not be more advantageously understood in terms of the division ancient-medieval-modern or any other, designed to make large-scale cultural differentiations more manageable. Hence the fact that periodization as an academic pursuit is less evident now than in earlier times when the history has been studied as an unskilled universal history, encompassing all known humanity and all eras. known. While every specialty necessarily inhibits this pursuit, devaluing the use of longer periods, some specialty strengthens the use of all others. What is perhaps most significant in pedagogical periodization today is the use of smaller units.
Concentration on shorter periods of study widened the gap between pedagogical and legal periodization. This is not the case because the former treats in decades and the latter in millennia – a generalization by no means true. It is rather that the smaller units employed today make the prerequisite of legal schemes – namely, the affirmation of a single spiritual, economic, biological, numerical or psychological law or principle – whether increasingly unlikely. Designations of recognized periods are typically taken from ecclesiastical history (Reformation), political history (colonial period), dynastic history (Victorian), chronology (18th century), science (Darwinism) and scholarship (humanism). This variety strengthened recognition of the purely conventional character of periodization. But there does not seem to be a widely recognized or epistemologically warranted implication that current practice is the object of subjective and legal periodization. The variety expressed in appropriate conventions suggests greater congruence between the study and the subject studied. Periodization as a convention rather than ontological proof suggests greater congruence with the scientific method. Admittedly, there is more looseness, more dispute, more disagreement about dates and other factors that affect the precise delimitation of the units into which history is dismembered. But if different historians with different points of view arrive at different period configurations, the presumption is that they are precise observers rather than precise believers. At least the presumption is greater than if they looked at the complexity that is history and turned it into identical results.
_____
Always thinking of making it easy for you, (readers of education and transformation), we decided to make all the Summary on the division of history for download in PDF.
To access the material, check the following link and download:
Subscribe to our email list and receive interesting information and updates in your email inbox
Thanks for signing up.
