Introduction to history

History from Michael Smith

What is history?

Why is English the Language of Science?

English as the Scientific Language

The Spread of the Major Religions

1000 Years of European Border Changes

The Power of Language

Japanese History Lessons

Here's a BBC article (written by a former IB student) about history teaching in Japanese schools. She suggests that students' perception of events during the Sino-Japanese War and Second World War may have serious effects on international relations in the region, and therefore history teachers have considerable responsibility in shaping future events as well as accounts of those in the past. As in many countries, history teaching has become very politicised, and debates seem to be raging between the authors of different textbooks about how history should be presented in the classroom.

Japanese History Lessons 

A History of the Universe in 200 Words

Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?

Copyright 1996-1997 by Eric Schulman.

This piece was the inspiration for the book A Briefer History of Time and led to the Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project. Reprinted from the AIR, Volume III, Number 1, January/February 1997.

Thinking History

The History and Geography of Religion

Empires of the Middle East

Reason and the Universality of Human Rights

In December 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a full list of all 30 articles of which can be found here. The Assembly called upon all member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." In 1976 it was adopted as international law, having been ratified by a sufficient number of nations. It is now perhaps the cornerstone of international political ethics.

It was constructed, of course, as a consequence of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War, and was based on the reasoning that all human beings are "born fee and equal in dignity and rights" (Article 1). However its wording has been subjected to considerable criticism over a number of years. Proponents of alternative schooling, for example, are against the adoption of "universal elementary education" (Article 26), while organisations such as Amnesty International have argued that there is a need to adopt a right of refusal to kill in times of war (currently not mentioned by the Declaration). Some Muslim countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan) have critisised the UDHR for failing to take the religious context of Islam into account. In 1990 the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) was adopted by member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, as an alternative.

The biggest problem has been one of enforcing the terms of the Declaration and reprimanding those who violate them. Implicit in this is the fact that some countries interpret the articles differently to others. However, the UN Security Council has always found it difficult to get its members to come to a consensus where it is necessary to use force. This weakness was exposed in September, 2002, when President George W. Bush brought his case against Iraq to the General Assembly and challenged the UN to take action against Baghdad for failing to disarm. Unable to get the UN Security Council to act, Bush succeeded in securing permission from the US Congress to act against Iraq without UN approval. The American message seemed clear: as a senior administration official put it at the time, "we don't need the Security Council." This could be interpreted as proof that the logic of universal human rights enshrined in the Declaration is flawed, as suggested by author Will Self in this BBC podcast:

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of those rare people who could truly be called a 'polymath' (a person equally skilled in many different fields of study). Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galiliei and Francis Bacon are often also considered to be polymaths.

As well as being one of the Founding Fathers of the United States he was a printer, journalist, newspaper owner, physicist, politician, musician, composer and prolific inventor.

In this podcast his life and work are discussed by a number of academics:



Incidentally, I can across a rather amusing story about Franklin recently. In 1781 the Royal Academy of Brussels ran a competition asking for clever scientific suggestions. Here is his entry:

Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. 

It is universally well known, that in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

Francis Bacon and the Scientific Method

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a leading figure in the fields of natural philosophy and scientific methodology. He was a lawyer and member of Parliament and rose to the rank of Queen's Counsel under Elizabeth I and Lord Chancellor under James I. His political career ended in disgrace (and brief imprisonment in the Tower of London) when he was found guilty of accepting bribes.

He wrote on questions of law, state and religion, and contemporary politics. However, today he is best remembered for his work on systemising the gathering of scientific knowledge. He emphasised the importance of inductive reasoning and in doing so developed the scientific method as we know it today. Although the Royal Society (the world's first scientific institution) was not founded until 1660, after his death, he is widely credited as its inspiration.

The Danger of a Single Story

The Conquest of Mexico

The Siege of Tenochtitlan (what is now Mexico City) occurred in 1521, and resulted in the defeat of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma and the eventual victory of the Conquistador, Hernán Cortés. It was interesting for a number of reasons, perhaps most notably that it was a clash of two of the age's most powerful civilisations, and was one of its greatest naval battles, strangely occurring hundreds of miles from the ocean and two kilometres above sea level (Cortés had his ships and cannons transported over land and reassembled prior to the fighting). It signaled the end of the Aztec Empire, the dismantling of Aztec culture and infrastructure and the expansion of Spanish colonialism and wealth.

I found a BBC podcast in which a group of historians discuss the events of the siege and what happened before and after, including their perspective of life under Aztec rule prior to the arrival of the Spanish. It treats Cortés somewhat sympathetically, which is not a view that I've found to be very prevalent during my time living in Mexico City.

The Origin of Writing

BBC Radio 4 has produced a series of podcasts on the history and development of written language, called the "Written World", presented by Melvyn Bragg. I've uploaded them here in the order they were broadcast:

episode 1  

episode 2  

episode 3  

episode 4  

episode 5  

A Brief History of Sewage

This is perhaps my one and only attempt to write a semi-scholarly article on a historical subject. Public sanitation is commonly ignored, but of vital importance to human health. Water is likely to become the most valuable natural resource in the coming decades, but we treat it very wastefully, assuming perhaps that it is a limitless resource and that the Earth has an unlimited ability to cleanse it. I think that the advent of the flush toilet has also led to the development of the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality.

It's interesting that we see one of the greatest achievements of human "civilisation" as the development of cities (and now mega-cities), but this has had huge negative impacts on the general health of the population living within them. It was only through the work of true visionaries like Joseph Bazalgette, mentioned below, that many of us can now live fairly healthy disease-free lives within cities (like Mexico City where I am at the moment), with fairly reliable access to clean water. However, continued population growth and migration to cities threatens to undermine a lot of the advancements that have been made, and it must be remembered that (according to UNICEF) almost half of the population in the developing world - about 2.5 billion people - still lack access to basic sanitation.

A Brief History of Sewage

The History of English

This is a nice video produced by the Open University in the UK to give a brief overview of how English developed over the last thousand years. It is a good example of how closely language is linked to history, although some of the "history" is a bit tongue-in-cheek:

Manipulation of the Media

Just to prove that manipulation of the media is as old as the media itself, here are a couple of quotations I read recently. The description is taken from a wanted notice, purportedly signed by Pontius Pilate and later quoted by the Jewish historian Josephus:

"At this time, too, there appeared a certain man of magical power, if it is permissible to call him a man, whom certain Greeks call a son of God, but his disciples the true prophet, said to raise the dead and heal all diseases.
His nature and form were human, a man of simple appearance, mature age, dark skin, small stature, three cubits high [about five feet], hunch-backed, with a long face, long nose and meeting eyebrows, so that those who see him might be affrighted, with scanty hair with a parting in the middle of the head, after the manner of Nairites, and an underdeveloped beard."

This piece was later altered by Christian historians to read:

"... ruddy skin, medium stature, six feet high, well grown, with a venerable face, handsome nose, goodly black eyebrows with good eyes so that spectators could love him, with curly hair the colour of unripe hazel nuts, with a smooth and unruffled, unmarked and unwrinkled forehead, lovely blue eyes, beautiful mouth, with a copious beard the same colour as the hair, not long, parted in the middle, arms and hands full of grace..."

Taken from A Criminal History of Mankind, by Colin Wilson (Parragon, London, 1993).

At least both of the original authors agreed that Jesus had a centre parting. Other than that, I'm still undecided on his real appearance.