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Chapter 1: A Holistic World History: An Introduction

Accompanying the holistic world history survey ....  (forthcoming)

Teacher Resources for Waves of Global Change

Waves of Global Change:
A Holistic World History Teaching Handbook for Educators

Welcome to the site for the forthcoming world history book...

Waves of Global Change: A Holistic World History

...uses a “big picture” approach that spans a broad sweep of time from the big bang to the present. The overarching development of humans through time and space organizes this world history into five major transformations or critical turning points called waves. Each wave is holistic, meaning that it has distinctive cultural characteristics or patterns that reinforce each other. Illuminating our long human history can help us learn its valuable lessons. 

Synopsis

Waves of Global Change: A Holistic World History
Dr. Denise R. Ames

Waves of Global Change: A Holistic World History is a timely and imaginative insight into our shared human history. This unique “big picture” approach to world history scans the expansive view of the past to give full voice to the human venture. The broad, holistic perspective used in this book provides a clear alternative synthesis that is different than the way history is usually told. World history is not a static subject rigidly fixed in a set canon; rather it is a dynamic, flexible, and unfolding process. This greater breadth gives the reader a more in-depth understanding of our human past than the traditional world history. The purpose of this book is to illuminate our long human history, and see how and why we have arrived at the point we are today. By looking at the larger historical context we can more deeply understand the enormity of our present-day actions, and with this greater awareness we can learn valuable lessons from history that will help us make more informed choices for a sustainable and life-enhancing future. 

Sweeping across a panoramic view of our species from the big bang to the present, our human cultural history is integrated within physical and biological history. Woven into this narrative are five threads—interdependence, paradox, creative and destructive forces, change and continuity, and commonalities and diversity—that help create the universe, generate life on earth, and shape our human story.

To give the fullest picture of humankind, deep underlying human activities are systematically organized into five comparative patterns that form the core connection linking our past, present, and future. The patterns are drawn from an interdisciplinary perspective and integrated within a historical framework. Diverse subjects—anthropology, psychology, geography, politics, economics, sociology, science, and the humanities—are included. The five patterns—Relationship to Nature: Ecosystem Patterns; Ways of Living: Techno-Economic Patterns; Human Networks: Social Patterns; Establishing Order: Political Patterns; and Human Expressions: Cultural Patterns—each contain different content but are repeated in each wave.

Waves of Global Change uses a developmental periodization design instead of the typical chronological periodization format used in most traditional history. Development means the common or holistic ways in which humans fashion their ways of living, interact with the environment, develop political, economic, and social systems, and create cultural and religious expressions. Holistic, in this context, means that all the cultural characteristics (patterns) in a society reinforce each other. Therefore, the development of humans through time and space guides the organization of this world history into five major transformations called waves. The five waves are critical turning points or watersheds that signify deep structural change in our human historical process. A wave, an organic metaphor, expresses significant, long-lasting change, has open-ended beginning and ending dates, creates a ripple effect of change through all patterns of society, and has both creative and destructive tendencies. The five patterns described above form the narrative in each of the five waves. 

The five waves in our history—communal, agriculture, urban, modern, and global—have distinctive characteristics or patterns. In the Communal Wave people gather/hunt or forage for food and live together in small communal, nomadic bands bound together through strong kinship ties. This wave encompasses the emergence of modern humans around 40,000 years ago and continues today with very small numbers still practicing, although in an altered form, a foraging way of life. With the Agriculture Wave people change from foraging for food to agricultural food production and a sedentary, village way of life. People begin to make this change in some, but not all, areas of the world beginning approximately 10,000 BCE. This transition also occurs at later time periods whenever a group begins to adopt an agricultural way of life. Some people today continue to live in small villages and retain some Agriculture Wave characteristics similar to earlier people. During the Urban Wave, beginning in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE, groups of people evolve out of sedentary agricultural villages to develop more populous and complex urban societies. This wave marks a transition to what we call civilization and all its accompanying characteristics. Some people in the world today continue to practice conventions that are characteristic of the Urban Wave, especially its religious traditions. The Modern Wave emerges around 1500 CE when some Western European countries rise to prominence, beginning with the conquest of the Western hemisphere and followed by interaction with and subjugation of societies throughout the world. Modern characteristics, shaped largely by Western Europeans, diffuse around the world after 1500. The Global Wave is presently developing across the world. Humans in this wave create globally interconnected communication, transportation, financial, commercial, and trade networks and they use sophisticated technological innovations.

Drawing upon her reservoir of teaching experience, professional training, and years of thorough research, Dr. Denise R. Ames dares to simplify the complex and often overwhelming subject of world history into a comprehensible model that is accessible to the college undergraduate and high school history student, as well as a resource book for social studies educators, even those with a limited world history background. The book would also provide a thought-provoking approach to world history for the general reading public. As one reader proclaimed enthusiastically, “It is like standing on a table and seeing the pieces of a puzzle fit together.”