2000 Years of World History: 2000 Years of World History is the history of the world’s civilizations told in one continuous run with minimum emphasis on the separation of nations.

by Chao C. Chien

2000 Years of World History is a new presentation of the history of the world. The history of the world’s civilizations is told in one continuous run with minimum emphasis on the separation of nations. National histories serve the needs of individual nationals. American history deals with those events considered significant to America, and likewise French history focuses on those that have meanings to the French. However, studying the histories of the Americans, the French, and others does not equate with studying the history of the world. No nation is an island. Past events of a country, its history, were intrinsically interwoven with those of other countries, be it through cultural exchange (the spreading of the knowledge of papermaking, use of gun powder, etc.), diplomatic intercourse (evangelizing of religions, the opening of Japanese ports by Matthew C. Perry, etc.), or conflict (no example needs to be given). National histories, because of their preoccupation with national events, often place secondary emphasis on events beyond that scope, and that can lead to bias; bias in the sense that our understanding of such events can take on a skewed perspective. This prejudice can further be slanted due to nationalism. That is the root of the Walter Benjamin “History is written by the victors.” The writers of national histories tend to shine their nations in good light. That leads to the coloring of good and evil, and right or wrong. The fact is, historical events should not be understood in such moralistic terms. They should be presented as facts—not even interpretations of facts, but facts based on evidence. We should let the history users draw their own conclusions on these events of the past and make their own moral determination, rather than imposing on them our notion of moral values. An example would be the ongoing conflict in Syria. The United States is backing the rebels against the Syrian government, and the president of Syria, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, is branded a monster. He kills his own people. He should be brought to trial as a war crime offender. These are all judgment-loaded assertions. If one were to read pro-Syria reporting, one would get a completely opposite sense. The Syrian government is battling rebels, who are Syrians. Therefore, the Syrian government is of course killing its own people. By siding with the rebels, who are thus anointed as being on the right, the Syrian government is naturally cast as the villain. However, the Syrian government was in place before the challenge of the rebels. Does it not have the right to defend itself, or do we expect the Syrian government to lay down its arms and proclaim, “Ah, we have learned from the Americans that we are the bad guys, so we now surrender and make room for the righteous ones”? History with a world view allows us to take a bird’s-eye view of international events. If we were to do that with the Syrian analogy we would be instead focus on the involvements of not just Syria and the United States, but Iraq, Turkey, the Kurds, Russia, and Iran and Israel, each having its interests at stake. We will quickly shed our attachment to the notions of good vs. evil ad who is right and who is wrong. Extant history, often that which is taught in classrooms, is fraught with such moralistic proselytizing, and it distracts from our attempt to understand what happened in the past and learn from it. These involve issues of ethnicity, culture, and even definitions of nations. An example would be the long history of Egypt. The Egypt of today is not the Egypt of 2,000 years ago. The old Egypt was dead. Its language is no longer spoken. It therefore arouses a feeling of incongruity when the Egyptian cultural minister uses the phrase “our heritage.” 2000 Years of World History attempts to present history in a renewed light.

643 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 3, 2018

Reviews

[Jonathan Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although the book is chalked full of information and the writer has most definitely done his research, the title of the book should read “2000 years of China’s influence on world history”. Nearly every single chapter of this book references China in some way. Most of the chapters are about the Chinese dynasties and he scratches the surface on European empires as if they are not currently running the entire world. The expansion to the New World, which was the greatest venture for sea faring empires at that time, thus the world, was blown over as more of a rampage that suppressed the indigenous tribes rather than the introduction to our modern era as it should have been. However, China’s expansions and conquerings were lauded as rebellions and “throwing off the yoke”. The author repeatedly contradicts himself as he criticizes the naming of World War I and II, then describes how pretty much the entire world was some how influences or affected by the great wars. The book is horribly edited with massive amounts of typographical and grammatical errors, emphasizing the lack of the English language by the author and editor.