Talk:Human history

Coverage of genocides and atrocities

Ottoman genocides and Holocaust is mentioned in the article but the following seems to be missing:

• Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Africa etc. Here are few that can be mentioned such as California genocide: [1]
• Other crimes in Africa such as Atrocities in the Congo Free State, Herero and Nama genocide, and Algerian_War#Atrocities_and_war_crimes
• Circassian genocide
• Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction with about 5 million dead.

And that is just from a very quick glance at the article. Here's a specific example of the biased coverage:

• What the article says:

  Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca.[447] Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%.[448]

• What sources say:
  • The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies p. 304

    The conquest of Latin America resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of individuals, primarily as a result of disease and forced relocation into more concentrated settlements, as well as through exterminatory attacks on those who resisted Iberian domination. Severe exploitation aggravated the process through overwork, nutritional deficits, and reduced resistance to illnesses generally. Paralleling this process were concerted efforts to destroy the religious and cultural fabric of native societies through the systematic destruction of sacred objects, the death of indigenous religious leaders, and the prohibition of native rites

  • The Cambridge World History of Genocide Volume 2 p. 6:

    European colonisation has stretched around the world for more than five centuries, disrupting or destroying millions of Indigenous people’s lives. Yet only in the last few decades have some colonial histories, especially those of settler colonies, begun to be understood as genocidal. This volume reflects that historiographical shift. Sixteen of the following chapters identify and document genocides committed by colonists and their leaders in Ireland, North America, Australia and Africa. However, this volume also includes two cases of mass violence perpetrated by members of Indigenous groups, in North America (Ned Blackhawk’s Chapter 10 on the Iroquois destruction of Wendake) and Africa (Michael Mahoney’s Chapter 14 on the Zulu Kingdom’s genocide of neighbouring groups). In addition, this volume also assesses cases that did not take place in a settler colonial context, such as Dean Pavlakis’ Chapter 24 on the Congo, as well as four cases on the Eurasian continent, in Korea, Central Asia, Russia and France.

I'm also adding a NPOV tag for now. Bogazicili (talk) 16:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• Bogazicili, please don't do that. Not everything can be covered in every article. Drmies (talk) 16:49, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  Ok, I'll wait for few more comments and proceed with a RfC if necessary. Bogazicili (talk) 16:53, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  RFC's are not for retaliation. If a discussion reaches a standstill over a prolonged period, sure. You sound like you're practically threatening an RFC after less than a few hours of discussion. Aza24 (talk) 18:13, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  Not my intent. Bogazicili (talk) 18:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact that something occurred in the history of the world is not sufficient reason for including it in this article, see WP:PROPORTION and WP:UNDUE. This article can't discuss every single genocide, similar to how it cannot discuss every single war. Are you aware of sources that establish that the genocides you mentioned really were major events from the perspective of world history in general? The sources you presented so far belong to the more narrow field of genocide studies, not world history in general. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't mean listing every genocide. But we need a concise single sentence that several genocides occurred in Americas. Or at least point to the debate about it (some authors seem to argue against it). No need to list everything, but omitting to mention the issue entirely is indeed biased. Bogazicili (talk) 17:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• Which chapters in the Cambridge World History are important enough to be included in the article, and why? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Is there really a reason you can articulate why it's "systemic bias"? Is the bias that there aren't enough Americans editing Wikipedia? (If you would argue that that there being too many Americans is actually why it the Great Dying is not mentioned, you're mistaken.) Surely nothing is lost by being a bit more specific and not using terms just because they sound more serious. Remsense诉 17:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

No colonial genocide by Europeans are mentioned. Besides the above quote, here's the one for Long nineteenth century: The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power. Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan.. Positives are mentioned, negatives are omitted such as Atrocities in the Congo Free State (with up to 13 million dead) Bogazicili (talk) 17:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the things you've mentioned should be in the article, but I just really don't see why it's systemic bias—which is a broader characterization about the recent efforts of specific editors. It seems more helpful just to call it bias which is a more natural to remedy in one specific article and perhaps assumes a bit less about the contributors. Remsense诉 17:24, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I say Wikipedia:Systemic bias because I assume it's due to the demographics of editors. For example, if we had more editors from Congo, they'd probably be more passionate about inclusion of Atrocities in the Congo Free State. If we had more native American editors, they'd be more passionate about indigenous genocides sentence. It doesn't mean there was any bad faith intent among the primary editors of the page. It's easy to miss issues in a very high level article such as this. Does that make sense? Bogazicili (talk) 17:33, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Classic Wp:recentism - what about the the Mongols, Timur, Assyrian Empire and so on and on. Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Some of those can be added too possibly. But there's a whole paragraph about European colonization here Human_history#Long_nineteenth_century starting with European empires lost territories in Latin America, which won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns, but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world.... So an entire paragraph but any mention of genocides or atrocities committed by Europeans are omitted? I don't think there's an entire paragraph about Mongols. Bogazicili (talk) 18:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

This topic might be best addressed by simply stating that genocides have happened throughout history.... without naming any individual one.... we should simply summarize what the UN says or actually quote it "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity." Moxy🍁 18:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but there's no natural place for a general comment like that in such an article. We have no "overview" section (nor should we, that would get messy quick), and including such a sentiment in the lead would not be summing up the article like a lead should. Aza24 (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, removal of anything wasn't my suggestion. Examples can be given in relevant sections, with concise overview sentences. Bogazicili (talk) 18:19, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Pick by what criteria ? List of genocides Moxy🍁 18:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Bogazicili, this article is intended to be perhaps the most general, concise and summarized article on Wikipedia. You will need to cite and provide examples from books on the topic of Human history. That is, we need to see these things represented in modern reliable secondary sources about human history. Of course the The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies is going to mention these things, but how much are the mentioned in The Cambridge World History series? I'm not saying I disagree with you, in fact it seems like many here sympathize with your concerns (including me), but you're going about this the wrong way (and the systemic bias accusations don't help). As for which genocides, again, that would be decided by coverage in topic-relevant reliable sources. Aza24 (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Aza24, thanks for the source suggestion. I checked The Cambridge World History Volume 7 Part 1. There seems to be good coverage of genocide topic (chapter 16). Here are some quotes and page numbers. I'm keeping the quotes under 200 words:

• About Genocide of Indigenous peoples, page 430:

  That said, and ever since the initial Eastern seaboard settler wars against the Tsenacommacahs and Pequots in the 1620s and early 1630s, systematic genocidal massacre was a core component of native destruction throughout three centuries of largely ‘Anglo’ expansion across continental North America. The culmination of this process from the mid-1860s to mid-1880s ... native Araucanian resistance by the Argentinian and Chilean military in the Southern Cone pampas, primarily in the agribusiness interest. In Australia, too, ‘Anglo’ attrition or outright liquidation of Aborigines from the time of ‘first contact’ in 1788 reached its zenith in Queensland in these same decades, as a dedicated Native Mounted Police strove to cleanse the territory of indigenous tribes in favour of further millions of cattle stock. Undoubtedly, in all these instances, Western racism and contempt for natives as ‘savages’ played a critical role in psychocultural justifications for genocide

• About Circassian genocide, page 430:

  However, the 1864 Russian genocidal eructation of the Circassians from the North Caucasus into Ottoman territory...

• About Atrocities in the Congo Free State, page 429:

  One irony of this situation is that the most egregious case of violent mass death in fin-de-siècle Africa – the drive to extract wild rubber by concession companies in the so-called Congo Free State...

Bogazicili (talk) 21:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

This seems solid enough ground to partially expand content on the genocide of Indigenous peoples by at least sentence or two; I would assume the content needed here would be Oceania-based (which is an exceptionally small section in the Early modern period to begin with). I'm afraid the single sentence on the Circassian might not translate to anything in a limited encyclopedia article.

I think the last quote illustrates a possible lapse in this article. There's nothing said on the actual time during which African countries were colonized, just when they were colonized and when they were decolonized. I'd suggest that at the end of the 2nd paragraph in the "Long nineteenth century", a sentence be included on why the appeal of colonizations to major powers, and then the negative results for the native population, where the Atrocities in the Congo Free State could be used as an example.

That's just my reaction, others are welcome to way in. – Aza24 (talk) 22:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I suggest adding the following two sentences.

• For the Americas: Colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples. Sourced to Cambridge World History, from the quote Bogazicili provided.
• For Africa: Imperial rule in Africa involved many acts of violence such as the atrocities in the Congo Free State and the Herero and Nama genocide. --Cerebellum (talk) 23:27, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

For the Americas, the source states seems to restrict its claims to "smaller groups" of native populations in North America while excluding "large native populations" in "tropical Africa, or the Central and Southern Americas" (p. 429). This should probably be reflected in our sentence, maybe as In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples. Some scholar suggest the wider claim that colonialism is "intrinsically genocidal" but I don't think that this is the generally accepted position. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:38, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I made that change and added the sentences. Bogazicili, does that resolve your concerns? --Cerebellum (talk) 09:23, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Cerebellum and Phlsph7, thank you for the changes. I have several more concerns:

• I do think Circassian genocide should be mentioned in the article. Genocides against Christian and Jewish populations are already mentioned in this article, but there is nothing about genocides against Muslim populations, such as the Circassian genocide. I think this can be integrated into the following sentence while the tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire did little to slow the Ottoman decline. I'll make a proposal about this after I go through a few more sources myself.
• Genocide in Australia should be added into Long nineteenth century section. There's already a sentence that covers British expansion: The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies. So you just need to add something like "which led to genocide in Australia" into that sentence. Bogazicili (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

To make space for "which led to genocide in Australia", consider trimming this sentence: European empires lost territories in Latin America, which won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns. You can just say something like "Latin American countries gained independence by the 1820s". Bogazicili (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense, I suggest you make those changes unless someone objects. I personally have never heard of the Circassian genocide but it has a similar death toll to the Armenian genocide and both are mentioned in the Cambridge World History, so to be consistent I think we would either have to include both or omit both. --Cerebellum (talk) 19:56, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Great, I made the changes. The word count increased by only 4, while coverage of Ottoman Empire expanded significantly.

• Added Circassian genocide per above
• Migration into Ottoman Empire is mentioned in The Cambridge World History Vol 7 Part 2 p. 5: Tsarist and Habsburg Empires against the Ottoman Empire sent soldiers moving and Muslim peasant families fleeing. So I believe this is due too.

Combining with additional sources, this is the result: [2]

I really like how you guys link individual pages in the reference btw. I don't think I have seen that before. Bogazicili (talk) 09:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually I was too hasty, looks like the Australian case is more controversial. See Australian history wars#Genocide debate. I'm not sure if we should call it genocide or not. --Cerebellum (talk) 20:03, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to focus too much on genocides. It's often uncontroversial that a certain atrocity was committed but the problem of whether some parts of this atrocity amount to genocide is frequently controversial. I would suggest that we limit ourselves to atrocities of world-historic importance. If it's uncontroversial that a major part of one of those atrocities amounts to genocide, we can say so. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:09, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Can we mention Soviet famine was specifically directed at certain populations in Human_history#World_wars? The Cambridge World History Vol 7 Part 1 p. 425: ...cause or amplify famine was particularly directed at the Ukraine, North Caucasus, Volga region and Kazakhstan? Holodomor can be linked to Ukraine. Bogazicili (talk) 09:26, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

While I don't have an objection to this request in particular, I just feel that we keep on bloating the article with details that are in some sense relevant but far from essential. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose to the Ottoman contraction article for being WP:UNDUE. One would also have to write about the Ottoman atrocities committed beforehand such as the Hamidian massacres and Bulgarian Horrors, it is POV pushing to omit these. And at this point the subject would be too long for a due weight in all of human history. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Concur with the above. Khirurg (talk) 22:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose the bloating of the article with details on the Colonial genocides. It caused eurocentric bias. Colonialism is "intrinsically genocidal" and so is the human history. Non-Europeans were not inferior in the task.

Above, it was suggested to reduce the topic of genocides to an overview similar to the genocide statement by the UN, and counter-argued that there is no place for such an overview in the article.

Perhaps, the article can end with a Summary where such statement is made. Arnold Toynbee mentions several professional historians who summarized the human history: "History is one damn thing after another." Edward Gibbon summed history up as "a little more than human criminal record." And he died before most of the genocides mentioned here.

Summary of human history can be premature, as history will not end soon and Wikipedia is not crystalball. But Summary can end open with two possibilities, one realistic and one fantastic.

• Realistic possibility: Aliens come and forbid genocides.
• Fantastic possibility: We on our own will end genocides.--IronMike6 (talk) 04:56, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Bump so this doesn't get archived. Will return to this. Bogazicili (talk) 18:38, 20 August 2024 (UTC) Bump Bogazicili (talk) 15:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC) Bump Bogazicili (talk) 21:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Shaping of Western civilization

G'day. This is a well written article for a such a complex subject. There was however this one sentence that made me think. Reading the sources made me think more. It's in the start of Europe in the Post-classical history. Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism.

On the face of it, my question is how? Reading the sources I had other questions.

• Hayas 1953, p. 2: there is a direct quote "Judaeo–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant". Judeo-Christianity seems to be main the subject, distinguishing but not necessarily emphasising Catholic and Protestant. It's also a 1954 book which without reading the book I know reflects older thinking that's been challenged now
• Woods & Canizares 2012, It quotes how the Catholic church matters more, dismissing other views like the transmission of ancient knowledge. But the fact the book has a forward from a Catholic cardinal, means this isn't the type of unbiased resource one would want for such an grand statement with a stakeholder that tries to position itself in modern dialogues on this topic. The introduction's first sentence from Philip Jenkins makes it clear this is an attempt to influence perception in American politics.
• McNeill 2010, p. 204 Talks about Byzantine contribution: Art, law, the scholars of the renaissance expanding on ancient knowledge, Italian city states ancestral knowledge that haf influenced them, on Slavic civilisation, and Byzantine ideas continuing on in eastern Christianity. All these points not covered at all in the statement and in fact contradict Woods & Canizares
• Faltin & Wright 2007, p. 83: the Internet archive link does not work, page 83 not showing on Google books but the surrounding pages talk about the modern formation of the EU due to Russia, the Moscow Patriarch. How is the statement reflective of this source? Or even relevant to a comment about since the 4th century? Is it to say Russia shaped western civilisation? That's interesting, especially when you link it also to Byzantium as well and Faltin & Wright's discussion of eastern Christianity, but a much bigger discussion.
• Spielvogel 2016, p. 156: I couldn't get access to this but the author is someone with a heavy bent to Catholicism and the Holy Roman Empire, again reflecting views from a non-diverse group of sources and questionable on its neutrality.

For a sentence like this it would more helpful to list what contribution was made, beyond just stating Christianity and its denominations. Some contextual knowledge to share to be helpful as I’ve recently dug into this and which clarifies the role made in law and slavery that’s used to support the role of the Catholic church:

• the contemporary world is underpinned by the civil law tradition and common law.[3] My readings on common law is still ongoing to comment but I'm up to 13th century England so far (the vacuum origin is questionable and there’s influence by the work done in Bologna discussed after this). That source I shared mentions Roman civil law, cannon law, and commercial law as three of the 5 sub-traditions of civil law of which the first had an outsized influence compared to the others. Building on this and not mentioned in the article is how Justinian code was rediscovered in western Europe in the 12th century as the Authenticum by the Glossator's in Bologna (with the Basilika later, would later be used to fill in gaps in the archaeological findings). Concepts like the idea of the body politic, the judiciary, and some fundamental ideas in our legal system around evidence and more all come from the work of the Glossator's and especially the commentators later. The first university in Bologna is credited as being formed due to the study of Justinians digests.
• Another big thing is the end of slavery with initial movements towards this in the late Roman/Byzantine era (implemented through Christianity) such as the ban on enslaving children during the Tetrarchy and the practice of freeing battle captives by the regime of Honorius and later in the eastern Roman empire not enslaving Christians (the church itself still owned slaves in places which we why historians don't credit the Church for much in this period).

I'm sure there are better points to list here, but I hope that's helpful. Ultimately, this sentence is fine to be one sentence but needs a lot more credible support if written simply but preferably expanded to list examples which can stand on their own and with sources that support them. Biz (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello Biz and thanks for raising this issue. I removed the broken link and I tried to expand the sentence a little to give some more concrete directions. It would be possible to explore each point more and you are right that the legal tradition would be one part of that. But I'm not sure that this is the best place to get into these details. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:58, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. The expansion and addition of Duchesne is the appropriate improvement. So much so that I now plan to read that book! Biz (talk) 16:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 talk 23:53, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the agricultural and industrial revolutions are key turning points in human history?

• Source:

• ALT1: ... that in early human history, humans migrated out of Africa and populated most of the Earth during the Last Ice Age? Source:
• ALT2: ... that for most of human history, children did not have access to public education? Source:
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Betty Hanley
• Comment:

References

Sources

• Cajani, Luigi (2013). "Periodization". In Bentley, Jerry H. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-968606-3.
• Christian, David (2008). This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity. Berkshire Publishing. ISBN 978-1-933782-04-1.
• Christian, David, ed. (2015). Introducing World History, to 10,000 BCE. The Cambridge World History. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139194662. ISBN 978-0-521-76333-2. Archived from the original on 26 January 2023. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
• Pollack, Henry (2010). A World Without Ice. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-101-52485-5.
• Scott, William; Vare, Paul (2020). Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development: A History of Ideas. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-20802-3. Archived from the original on 10 December 2023. Retrieved 3 May 2023.

Improved to Good Article status by Phlsph7 (talk) and Cerebellum (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 22 past nominations.

Phlsph7 (talk) 11:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC).

• Not a review, but two friendly comments. First, Agricultural revolution in ALT0 is a disambiguation page (I'm guessing it refers to the First agricultural revolution, which redirects to Neolithic Revolution). Second, if it's possible to make a hook about life expectancy and/or child mortality, that could be a very interesting hook indeed—I know I found John Green's video "Most People Have Never Been 20" interesting. TompaDompa (talk) 12:26, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for pointing this out, I fixed the link. A hook on changes to life expectancy could be interesting. I think the article only covers this in the sentence Advances in medical science led to a sharp increase in global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.[552], which does not give us much to work with. Maybe:

  ALT3: ... that in modern human history, advances in medical science helped raise global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.

  Phlsph7 (talk) 12:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not a big fan of ALT2, which is rather anachronistic: for most of human history, children did not live in societies in which "public education" was a meaningful concept. Given the wide scope of this article, I think a hook that encompasses a broad timescale would make the most sense. – Joe (talk) 11:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

  Many societies didn't really have public education so children didn't have access to it. Maybe you are concerned about something like the following: some readers may misconstrue the statement as implying that these societies did have public education but just not for most children. This is not what the hook says but it could happen. This problem could be solved by talking about formal education instead of public education but the claim in our article is about public education so this may not be acceptable according to the DYK rules. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:09, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

  What I mean is that 'public education' to be a meaningful concept there first needs to exist the idea of a formal education and a state that provides public services, neither of which existed for "most of human history". In other words I think the hook anachronistically implies that children were missing out on something that was not even conceptualisable until recently. Kind of like saying "for most of human history, satellites did not use reusable launch vehicles". Technically true, but not very meaningful. – Joe (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Can people miss out on something for which they lack the relevant concepts? For example, the ancient Egyptians didn't have the concept of antibiotics. Can we say that "the ancient Egyptians didn't have access to antibiotics"? To my ears, this sounds acceptable. But I'm also open to different ways of expressing the idea. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• ALT3 is not very well sourced. It cites page 1 of The Twentieth Century: A World History, which doesn't cite any sources for these figures, and a textbook on marketing for the "due to advances in medical science" part, which also doesn't cite a source for this claim. Neither source make it clear what specific measure of life expectancy they're using, but it's probably life expectancy at birth, which was largely a function of infant mortality in premodern societies and therefore the change involved more factors than just medical science (also improvements in public health, contraception, reduction of child poverty and malnourishment, etc). – Joe (talk) 11:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

  ALT3 is not my favorite either but I think the sources fulfill our requirements even though they themselves do not cite other sources for these claims. The hook says "helped raise" to not imply that there were no other factors. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:09, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

  I wouldn't say they fulfil the basic requirement of being reliable sources, in this context, per WP:EXCEPTIONAL. But this is probably best continued on the article talk page. – Joe (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  adjusted hook per talk page discussion at Talk:Human_history#Increase_in_life_expectancy:

  • ALT3a: ... that in modern human history, public health measures and advances in medical science helped raise global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000?

  Phlsph7 (talk) 07:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:01, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Holy daunting, Batman! The article is a new enough GA, with 60k bytes of prose. Earwig's wasn't working for me, so I've spotchecked a few references, and not seen any issues. Random selection of images revealed no copyright issues. Only thing I see are a few nitpicks (non-standard punctuation in refs, for example), which are not DYK problems. Preference is for ALT3a, though all of them seem acceptable.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:29, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello Chris Woodrich and thanks for your review of this big nomination! Phlsph7 (talk) 08:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Increase in life expectancy

Following up on my comments on the DYK nomination, I think we need clarification and better sourcing for the following claims in #Contemporary history:

Advances in medical science led to a sharp increase in global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.

The second source cited is a tertiary textbook on marketing, which I don't think is a reliable source for this topic and have removed. These leaves two claims:

• Global life expectancy increased from 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000 – currently cited to Schoppa 2021, which is okay, but doesn't cite any sources in turn or say where his data came from. A more specific source on historic demography would be an improvement.
• This was due to advances in medical science – now unsourced and dubious. For example, our own article on life expectancy says rather that "public health measures are credited with much of the recent increase in life expectancy".

On both counts clarification is needed of what measure of life expectancy is being quoted. Neither source says so, but it makes a big difference. I'm guessing it's life expectancy at birth, in which case it should be clarified that in a premodern context this is primarily a function of infant mortality rather than adult lifespan. Quoting these figures in isolation leads to the common misconception that in the olden days people died in their thirties. In reality, if you control for infant mortality, "life expectancy in the mid-Victorian period was not markedly different from what it is today".[4][5]

References

– Joe (talk) 10:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think advances in medical science and public health measures are two independent factors. The new insights of medical science can prompt public health measures and the public health measures can implement medical advances. We could take this into account by also mentioning public health measures in the sentence. Maybe something like "Public health measures and advances in medical science contributed to a sharp increase in global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000."

Concerning life expectancy, I think the two main uses are "life expectancy at birth" and "life expectancy at a certain age" (like the life expectancy of 65 year olds). For the 2nd one, there should be a specific age given in the text.

In regard to the sources about advances in medical science, do you think and are better?

References

Sources

• Getzen, Thomas E. (2022). Money and Medicine: The Evolution of National Health Expenditures. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-757328-0.
• Mathew, Oommen P.; Bhatia, Jatinder (2010). Innovations in Neonatal-perinatal Medicine: Innovative Technologies and Therapies that Have Fundamentally Changed the Way We Deliver Care for the Fetus and the Neonate. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-4280-04-4.

Phlsph7 (talk) 10:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Asia

Asia gets very hard done by in the post-classical and early modern sections. I think it'd leave the reader wanting Kowal2701 (talk) 20:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Generally, the ancient and modern sections are very good, the post-classical section is okay, and the early modern section needs work imo Kowal2701 (talk) 20:34, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello Kowal2701 and thanks for your contributions to this article. I'm not sure what specific problems you see with these sections so it's difficult to assess your criticism. Generally speaking, this overview article should only stick to the most important developments in each section. Everything else belongs to child articles on more narrow topics. The article is already very long regarding WP:SIZERULE. This is also a potential problem with your recent expansion of the post-classical "Africa" section, which is now over twice as long as before. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I agree it needs to be trimmed a bit. I’m not sure what can be trimmed though, I suppose the sentence on West Africa as the worlds largest gold exporter. It’s of a similar size to Europe, North-east Asia, and west/Central Asia.

Is it worth pushing the word count closer to the 15,000 limit in order to add more to the early modern sections? I think someone looking for a cursory overview of the political history of the world may find this article a little thin. The Africa early modern section is also very problematic and needs rewriting imo. Kowal2701 (talk) 08:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I know articles approaching 15,000 should almost always be split, but is it worth making an exception for this article because its scope is so incredibly wide? Kowal2701 (talk) 08:07, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that this is a good idea. We are currently at 11042 words. WP:SIZERULE recommends trimming articles above 9000 words. We have some leeway given our topic, but the article has already pushed that. If a section contains unimportant facts and lacks important facts, it can be rewritten accordingly without increasing its overall length. But if it already covers the most important facts, there is no need to include more facts.

Another point to consider is the relative importance of the different sections. According to WP:PROPORTION, the length of a topic in our article should reflect the coverage in reliable sources. If we make a section on Africa longer than sections on other regions, we imply that the developments in it were overall more important then the developments in other regions. At least for the post-classical period, this is probably not true. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree but you’ve also got to take into consideration the size of the section’s region. Europe is the size of west Africa. Europe should only be really getting special treatment from the 17th century onwards, the concept of an earlier divergence (as in the fruits born) is increasingly being treated less seriously. Also in the early modern section, the Americas getting more coverage than all the Asian sections is poor.

WP:Size rule says articles between 9000 and 15,000 Probably should be divided or trimmed, though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material. Considering the wideness of the scope, what’s the reasoning behind drawing the line at 11,000, especially if it results in a less than satisfactory coverage? Kowal2701 (talk) 10:03, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not drawing a special line at 11000. If the article size can be reduced without removing important information, all the better. If it has to be increased, then there should be a weighty reason to do so.

I don't think that the size of a region is a good criterion here. A better criterion would be: how much coverage do events get in reliable sources covering human history as a whole, like a book on world history. If we asked this question for the example you mention, we would probably discover that, in the post-classical period, events that happened in Europe get more coverage than events that happened in Africa. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree we shouldn't be adding content for the sake of it. Bear in mind that Africa has often been maltreated by the historical community, its lack of coverage isn't necessarily due perceived unimportance but convention and unfamiliarity. Note that Eurocentrism remains a major concern, and no doubt despite people's best efforts to counter it, most histories are written by Europeans in a European medium. Not that we should WP:Right great wrongs, but we should look at the sources a little more critically in this regard. Africa shouldn't really be one section, it should be split into regions like Asia (North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East and Southern Africa), although unfortunately the Cambridge World History doesn't do this much. Kowal2701 (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Also note that the 'Europe' section is not the only place Europe appears in, they are involved the Americas and African sections (just Portugal really) in the early modern period. In the Southeast Asia section, the whole of it is about Europeans save one sentence! It also includes content from the 19th century which is not within that section's scope, and gives the false impression that European dominance was achieved much earlier. Kowal2701 (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The whole of the Americas and Oceania sections! Incredibly problematic Kowal2701 (talk) 18:49, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to assume that our sources, even up-to-date high-quality sources, have an anti-African bias and that we should therefore include more information on Africa than they do. Other editors may claim that they have an anti-Asian, an anti-Middle-Eastern, or an anti-European bias and we end up bloating the article on all fronts. If there is a wide bias then the academic discourse has to correct itself. Once it has, we can adjust the article. As encyclopedists, we follow, we don't lead.

What you can do is look at high-quality books on world history. If they give a lot of attention to one region compared to other regions while our article doesn't, then we have a problem. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel like what I’ve written is the bare minimum. Trimming further would mean excluding important regions. What do you think of splitting Africa up into 4 small sections so at least there’s no implication of relative importance? Kowal2701 (talk) 09:38, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Dividing it into 4 smaller section would give even more weight to this region, implying that each subregion is important enough to merit its own section. I checked the post-classical section in Stearn's "World History: The Basics". It mentions that some African regions newly established the apparatus of civilization and also discusses new trade routes in which it participates, but otherwise does not give much emphasis to it compared to other regions. This source does not support an expansion in the way you are envisioning it. We could look at other sources, but I suppose they would paint a similar picture. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I really need to study the Cambridge World History properly. In the meantime, is it okay if I go 100 words over the status quo for the early modern section? I've been much stricter but still can't get it down. It's here, less than the Europe section and 30 words larger than the Americas. We can discuss which parts of the post-classical section are given too much weight and trim it down, although I'm not willing to exclude politically active regions in our history of the world. I do agree it needs to be trimmed, just find it a painful exercise. Kowal2701 (talk) 16:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Also note much of the introductory text in the early modern period is on Europe Kowal2701 (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

In the early modern period, Europe was involved in many of main developments, ranging from global exchange and trade, to the establishment of empires and science. So it's justified that it gets more coverage than Africa. If I look at the section on early modern history in Stearn's book, Africa gets even less coverage than in the post-classical section, so I would suggest to be very conservative with expansions. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:56, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You’re right, conservative is the right approach. Europe should get more coverage. An alternative could be to expand on this sentence in the early modern section Wars of particular note included the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars to give an overview of the balance of power and its change in Europe during this time (the growth of Germany and its impact on balance of power needs to be mentioned prior to the world wars). In the post-classical section the Anglo-French rivalry and 100 years’ war isn’t even mentioned. There’s no introduction of the main powers/characters, the focus is more on cultural movements rather than political history, and assumes the reader is familiar with Europe which I think is a mistake.

Is there anything I’ve written that screams out “undue” to you? For west Africa and east Africa I’ve tried to condense the narratives as much as possible, but it might be that that just isn’t due. Kowal2701 (talk) 10:02, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

One reason for my hesitation is that I don't understand why the expansion is necessary here rather than discuss these facts in articles on more narrow topics. I don't want to veto your suggestion, I'm just not sure that it results in an overall improvement of the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:49, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Where African history is concerned, there’s very little general history on this site, the best articles are the former country ones, and as such, the articles below History of Africa mostly just feature summaries of those. I thought it’d make sense to have incredibly condensed narratives for each region at this top level article, and work it into more detail for Medieval and early modern Africa, and then condense that for History of Africa, but with enough detail that the reader can differentiate between the characters besides just name (most of what’s there will probably get moved to the lower article). Oral traditions are usually very elaborate when they’re composed, and get condensed over time, until eventually crystallising into a cliche. For example the cliche for the Horn of Africa is Muslims vs Christians, so that could be an option here. I’m surprised at the lack of political history on Western Europe at History of Europe, it does a poor job at introducing the major characters imo and focuses a lot on general social history. I’d expect social history to more be covered by country articles, and political history by general articles. Kowal2701 (talk) 10:12, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Personally I think the proposal is a big improvement, the Africa early modern section is all over the place. First off it starts with something on slavery, which I find hilarious. It doesn't even mention the Fula jihads. It lists Akan states which are undue. It calls Mutapa and Rozvi "small kingdoms" and implies they existed at the same time. It vaguely says the Berbers lost their independence without mentioning the Ottomans or Morocco. It doesn't even mention the Oromo expansion. It goes into Ethiopian dynastical history which is undue. It mentions more forest states in a separate paragraph to the Akan states. It vaguely lists countries that thrived, supposedly in isolation, and ignores the central African interior, and Portuguese colonisation. Kowal2701 (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I applaud this critical review and discussion, but I am also a little concerned that the solution to everything seems to be to make everything more detailed (expanding)?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:33, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think detail is the wrong word, there should be as little detail as possible, but a bit more content added that at the moment is completely excluded. There shouldn't be any big expansion, just a few sentences here and there. For example, in the Oceania section there should be a sentence on Hawaii, on Melanesia, and on the Society Islands and Polynesia. But the detail should be non existent, and the history condensed into single sentences. Maybe a sentence on the Frontier Wars would be due as well Kowal2701 (talk) 10:47, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

A big issue is the relative size of sections, as that would put the Oceania section at a similar size to the West and Central Asia section. However half of it would be on the actions of Europeans, so I don't think it's as big a problem as it might look. Kowal2701 (talk) 10:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Given the global impact of the slave trade, I think it makes sense to mention it first. I'm not an expert on the regional dynamics so its difficult for me to assess which ones of the developments you mentioned are due or undue. Is there a way to fix the due-undue issues in this subsection without a substantial expansion? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

The slave trade is better discussed in the Americas section, in Africa it was more a feature of the political landscape rather than one that defined it. There's the old adage that African history is just slavery and colonialism. I think it makes more sense to place it in the geographical location, ie. the forest regions of West Africa or after the Kongo sentence.

I haven't mentioned the Ovambo kingdoms in Namibia, Wadai and the collapse of Kanem Bornu, the Sao civilisation and Kotoko, Wassoulou Empire, Tippu Tip's State, the Boers, Kuba Kingdom and others in central Africa like Kasanje Kingdom, the Ovimbundu kingdoms, nor anything about colonial resistance which the General History of Africa gives practically a whole volume to. I really don't want to be bad faith and push from one angle at the expense of the article but I do think everything in that proposal is due. Kowal2701 (talk) 10:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

"Human History"??

While I have zero issues with the point of this article, the name of "Human History" is really strange to me. What other kind of history is there besides human? As far as I am aware, we have not yet discovered any other organisms that record the past in written form. Shedsunefertum17 (talk) 12:03, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Big History would be an example of a discipline that goes beyond the human realm. Apart from that, there are various branches of history that only examine certain aspects of human history and should be terminologically distinguished from human history, like History of Africa or Economic history. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:16, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

The usual title one encounters for the subject of this article is "world history". I believe that was the original title.

Nihil novi (talk) 21:02, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Was going to comment the same thing, might be worth making an RM but the last one was unsuccessful. Kowal2701 (talk) 21:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

World history could also work as a title. One difficulty is that world history is ambiguous as it refers both to the academic discipline (discussed in the article World history (field)) and the events studied by this discipline (discussed in this article). The advantage of the title Human history is that it avoids this ambiguity. For the unsuccessful proposals 2 years ago, see Talk:Human_history/Archive_4#Requested_move_16_October_2022. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:59, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

For those of us who see "history" as human-by-definition the title can be grating, but I came to accept that a lot of readers are used to using the term history more loosely, so that it can include geological, biological and paleontological discussions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:02, 11 November 2024 (UTC)