hist 100x - unit 2
TRANSCRIPT
What does it mean to be
modern?
What, if anything, is modern in particular about
the Renaissance and Reformation?
To what extent is the Renaissance and
Reformation not modern?
Is the Renaissance and Reformation a logical
beginning for the story of the modern world?
Invented Traditions
“Traditions’ which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented…”
“Let fate do her worst,
there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past,
which she cannot destroy;
Which come in the night-time
of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features
that joy used to wear.
Long, long be my heart
with such memories fill’d!
Like the vase, in which roses
have once been distill’d-
You may break, you may shatter
the vase if you will
But the scent of the roses
will hang round it still.”
Farewell….
By Thomas Moore,
1779-1852
Tools of Torture, 1508
Scaffold,
Stake,
Decapitator,
Sword,
Stock,
Thumbscrews,
Whipping post,
Rack,
Flesh pincers
Theodoric of York,
Medieval Barber
Click to watch
Saturday Night
Live skit
Humanism
Emphasis more on here and now instead
Role of individual
Rights of Man vs. Rights of Men
Exploration of wider world
“Big History” Years before Present
• 14 BILLION (universe)
• 4.6 billion (solar system)
• 2.5 billion (photosynthesis oxygen)
• 1.5 billon (first complex cells)
• 600 MILLION (first fossils)
• 500 million (vertebrates)
• 325 million (reptiles)
• 250 million (mammals)
• 240 million (dinosaurs)
• 200 million (birds)
• 65 million (extinction of dinosaurs)
7 million (first hominines, bipeds)
250,000 (Homo sapiens, language)
“Big History” Three Eras of Big Human History
ERA NO. 1 FORAGING
250,000 to 10,000 Years Ago - “Paleolithic” (Old Stone Age)
Energy use 2,000 to 5,000 calories per day per cap
ERA NO. 2 AGRICULTURE
10,000 to 250 Years Ago - “Neolithic” (New Stone Age) to
Bronze and Iron Ages
Energy use 12,000 to 26,000 calories per day per cap
ERA NO. 3 INDUSTRIAL
250 years to present - The Steam and Electric Age
Energy use 77,000 to 230,000 calories per day per cap
2000 years of World History
“…everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world -- the mastering of means of manufacturing, production and supply chains by steam, electricity, and ultimately software…” Derek Thompson, The Atlantichttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2-000-years-in-1-little-graph/258676/
Hans Rosling 3D
Visualization from
Poor & Sick to Rich
& Healthy in last
200 years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
Click on the link to view the 3D Visualization
“The Anthropocene,”
The Age of Man
More change in past six
seconds—250 years—than in
the previous 250,000 years.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Climate Change
Science is never completely
certain!
“The doubters are right that
uncertainties are rife in climate
science. They are wrong when
they present that as a reason for
inaction.” (Economist, March 18,
2010)
The Great Mystery of
Modern History
The great mystery of the modern world is how
and why the so-called “continent” of Europe,
which in the 15th century, was an economic,
cultural and political backwater, would come
to dominate every sphere of human activity
on the planet by the end of the 19h century.