Talk:World History Project - Contents/Archive 1

This structure is based entirely on the requirements for the CA book. Lord, if it doesnt look to be a boring book. Somehow I graduated from high school and college without knowing most of this stuff. --Karl WickI think that a textbook on world history should actually encompass more than the development of western government. Talk more about India, China and Africa for heaven's sake. I realize this outline is designed to meet California requirements but a comprehensive textbook on World History should be more representative.

Just have come across this. It's as biased as World History could be. IS there a world outside Europe and the USA? Makes me wonder...

I just haven't gotten around to writing about most of the world yet. As you can tell, I've started work on the Ancient World, WWI & WWII, Exploration, Ancient Mesoamerica, and Early China & Japan. That's alot of information already (because of some additional chapters, this may turn out to cover much more than the CA standard, and at least twice as long). Right now, the entire thing is map deficient (most of that stuff is copyrighted and ineligible for inclusion), date deficient (sorry, but right now I'm more concerned about adding info than dates), and grammar deficient (again, info over proofs). It's going to take time, so thanks for patience and help! --Tai

One most consider the way in which one World History is taught. For example AP World History, to not seem Euro-centric fixates on the concept of interactions between nations after European Ex & Dis. this is in contrast to what World History once was where you would get a fairly indepth look at Mesopotamia then India, China, perhaps Mesoamerica and then to greece and rome and continue on with Europe for the rest of the year. My Pre-AP World History class was done like that but we stopped at the Renaissance in preperation for AP European History, which starts a few hundred years before the Renaissance. When I was offered the chance to take AP World History, I quickly discovered that although the education I received in World History was excellent, I was lacking in anything after the Renaissance for anywhere other then Europe. A good example of this method of history can be found in Spielvogel's World History: A Human Odessey. Speilvogel heavily emphasis Europe and "western" civilizations after a certain point, with one or two chapters here and there covering broad topics in non-western civilizations. Eurocentricism is a large component of history education and one needs to find a way to not babble on incoherently about the "East" in an attempt to make it seem like there is more there then there actually is, while not taking the imperialist concept of "The White Man's Burden" to bring civilization to those eastern savages. The College Boards method is affective, but it does take some of the fun out of history because you center on interactions and trade rather then events and figures. --Alexbl 02:37, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Personally, interactions and trade is the way to go for me. Sure, we will need to know about Hannibal, Gengis Khan, Napoleon, or Bismark, but in most cases the impetus for the events they inspired are already there. For example, Germany was well on its way to unification before Bismark, with the Confederation of the Rhine and that economic thing of theirs. Bismark just cleverly got France and Austria out of the way so he could set up the German Empire, but I bet at the rate Prussia was going it could have annexed all the little German states eventually. Of course, studying their lives is far more interesting than looking at the "big picture", and it's very easy (and correct) to think of one "great leader" altering history. But conditions have to be right, too. I bet there were plenty of people wanting to set up a German Empire long before Bismark came around, and faileed because of the petty infighting between the Germanic royals (before all the fighting got to them). Just my 2 cents. --Tai (P.S., nice job on the European History book, it looks much more complete than this one).

This page is a little odd--it focuses in only on California standards, and the organization is also wierd. Simple little things like titles and headings are missing and/or not in the most gramatically correct english. Also, you can't just read from a book and summaraize and/or copy exactly down what you see, that's not only plagiarism, but 10th grade history books are meant to be understood by people with a huge range of IQs, and still developing minds. This page needs serious restructuring. Though, I do admire trying to adhere to a written set of standards.--Naryathegreat 23:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)