Historiography and World History Lecture Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards generated from lecture notes detailing historiography, early human evolution, and ancient civilizations including Egypt, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and China.

Lorenzo Valla

A Renaissance scholar who challenged the authenticity of theological claims by analyzing primary sources and using textual criticism on texts like "The Donation of Constantine".

Textual criticism

A method of analyzing historical texts by examining both their internal and external claims to assess authenticity and context.

Giambattista Vico

A philosopher who argued that because God created the natural world, only God can truly know natural law and science, whereas humans can know history because humans created the world of nations.

Edward Gibbon

Author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," who argued that Rome collapsed under the weight of its own success and hinted that its Christianization accelerated its demise.

Jules Michelet

An anti-clerical and anti-monarchial historian who advocated for the "resurrection of the past" and believed historians must possess empathy for their subjects.

Thomas Carlyle

A proponent of the "Great Man" theory of history who defined history as "the essence of innumerable biographies" of heroic men, favoring autocracy over democracy.

Leopold van Ranke

A historian who defined history as "Geschichte… wie es eigentlich gewesen" (history… as it really happened), viewing history as an unmediated record of reality, truth, and God.

Marxist historiography

A historical approach using historical materialism as its analytical lens to focus on economic factors, working-class experiences, and daily lived history rather than elite history.

Postmodernism

A radical re-appraisal of modern assumptions regarding culture, identity, history, and language, arguing that concepts like "reason" and "logic" are local social constructs rather than universal truths.

Deconstruction

A method of critique used to expose weaknesses and imperfections in historical arguments, questioning claims that history can represent "the past as it really just was."

Evolution

The process through which plant and animal species change over time as environmental conditions favor the reproduction of specific advantageous traits.

Creation narrative

A culturally constructed narrative that draws on available evidence and belief systems to explain the origins of the world and humanity.

Homo sapiens

The first human species, emerging in Africa as early as $315,000$ years ago, characterized by well-developed brains, verbal communication, advanced technical skills, and cultural creativity.

Dinknesh ("Lucy the First")

An Australopithecus fossil discovered in Ethiopia in 1974; named "Dinknesh" by African scholars and workers, meaning "you are marvelous" in Amharic.

Australopithecus

An early bipedal hominid species that existed between $4$ million and $3$ million years ago in Africa, serving as an evolutionary link between apes and humans.

Homo habilis

An early hominin species known as "skillful human" that appeared around $2.5$ million years ago in Africa, had an omnivorous diet, and possessed a brain about half the size of a modern human brain.

Homo erectus

An early human species ("upright man") living from $1.8$ million to $110,000$ years ago that used Acheulian tools, controlled fire, hunted, and migrated out of Africa into Asia.

Turkana boy

A $1.6$ million-year-old fossil of an $8$ to $9$-year-old male Homo erectus whose abnormal spine suggests his species provided social care for the sick and disabled.

Homo neanderthalensis

A hominin species that evolved around $400,000$ years ago, lived by foraging, used tools, cared for the sick and elderly, interbred with Homo sapiens, and became extinct around $40,000$ to $25,000$ years ago.

The Anthropocene

A proposed geological epoch ("The Age of Humans") defining the time period during which Homo sapiens has exerted a significant impact on Earth's environment, land, and climate.

Narmer

The legendary first king of the 1st Dynasty of Egypt (ca. $3150\text{ BCE}$) who unified Upper and Lower Egypt and established standard conventions for Egyptian kingship.

Ma'at

The ancient Egyptian concept of order, truth, and balance that the pharaoh was divinely tasked with maintaining to prevent chaos.

Sneferu

An Old Kingdom pharaoh (r. $2614$-$2589\text{ BCE}$) who conducted international trade, launched campaigns into Sinai, and successfully constructed the first true pyramid.

The Great Pyramids of Giza

Royal tomb monuments begun under Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) that symbolized pharaonic power, constructed by full-time craftsmen and paid seasonal laborers rather than slaves.

Eurocentrism

The practice of focusing predominantly on European history and culture to the exclusion of other global perspectives, implicitly regarding European civilization as preeminent.

Orientalism

A concept redefined by Edward Said in 1978 as the patronizing and stereotypical representation of Asian and Non-Western cultures reflective of Western colonialist attitudes.

Indus River Valley Civilization

An ancient urban civilization centered around cities like Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, recognized for advanced sanitation, planned urban grids, uniform measures, and cotton cultivation.

Huang Di (Yellow Emperor)

A mythical Chinese emperor whose reign (beginning ca. $2697\text{ BCE}$) is traditionally credited with unifying the Yellow River peoples and marking the origin of Chinese history.

Yu the Great

The mythical founder of China's Xia dynasty who gained fame for controlling the flooding of the Yellow River through canals and dykes and dividing China into $9$ provinces.

Oracle bones

Divination artifacts dating to ca. $1500\text{ BCE}$ containing the earliest known forms of Chinese writing, originally used in folk medicine as "dragon bones."

Law Code of Hammurabi

A highly comprehensive ancient Mesopotamian legal code established by King Hammurabi of Babylon, famous for applying the principle of lex talionis ("an eye for an eye") among equal-status males.

The Hittites

An Indo-European empire based in central Anatolia ruled by warrior nobility, known for using iron weapons and governing through a system of "Great Kings" over local "Little Kings."

Supilluliuma I

The premier Hittite king and empire builder who defeated the Mitanni and held back Assyria before dying of a plague ca. $1322\text{ BCE}$.

Hatshepsut

An Egyptian female ruler (r. $1473$-$1458\text{ BCE}$) who transitioned from regent to co-pharaoh, prioritized merit-based promotions, launched major trading expeditions, and built extensive architectural monuments.

Akhenaton

An Egyptian pharaoh (r. $1353$-$1336\text{ BCE}$) who attempted a radical religious shift toward monotheism centered on the worship of Aten (the sun disc).

Ramses II

A prominent Egyptian pharaoh (r. $1279$-$1213\text{ BCE}$) who ruled for $66$ years, fought the Hittites at Kadesh ($1274\text{ BCE}$), and agreed to the world's oldest extant written peace treaty in $1258\text{ BCE}$.

Vedic Religion

A $3500$-year-old religious tradition based on sacred oral and written texts called Vedas (meaning knowledge, wisdom, or prayer), dating back to ca. $2000\text{ BCE}$.

Fu Hao (Lady Hao)

A Shang dynasty queen consort to King Wu Ding who served as a military general and high priestess, whose undisturbed tomb was unearthed in 1976 CE.