Periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks. For other uses see Time (disambiguation Time is a component of a measuring system used to sequence events to compare the durations of The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on periods of time with relatively stable characteristics.
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General
Most disciplines that attempt to talk fruitfully about the past find it helpful to break up what has happened in various ways, and to give these smaller units names. The names are valuable to the extent that they aid analysis and description. Periodization from the sciences includes the geologic Cretaceous or Jurassic periods, while examples from human history include the Baroque Period, the Age of Anxiety, and the Harlem Renaissance. The Cretaceous (kriːˈteɪʃəs, usually abbreviated 'K' for its German translation "Kreide" is a geologic period and system, reaching from the end of The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Ma (million years ago to Ma that is from the end of the Triassic to the beginning Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc The Harlem Renaissance was named after the anthology The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke in 1925
To the extent that history is continuous and ungeneralizable, all systems of periodization are more or less arbitrary. Yet without named periods, however clumsy or imprecise, past time would be no more than a mound of glittering granules in a darkened silo. Nations, cultures, families, and even individuals, each with their different remembered histories, are constantly engaged in imposing overlapping, often unsystematized, schemes of temperal periodization; periodizing labels are continually challenged and redefined. One historian may write a new history of the Renaissance in Europe; another may claim that there was no such thing as the European Renaissance.
Usage
Not only will periodizing blocks inevitably overlap, they will often seemingly conflict with or contradict one another. Some have a cultural usage ("the Gilded Age"), others refer to prominent historical events ("the Inter-War years: 1918–1939"), yet others are defined by decimal numbering systems ("the 1960s", "the 17th century"). In American history, the Gilded Age refers to major growth in population in the United States and extravagant displays of wealth and excess of America's upper-class during Other periods are named from influential or talismanic individuals ("the Victorian Era", "the Edwardian Era", "the Napoleonic Era"). Culture The Victorian fascination with novelty resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities Class and society Socially the Edwardian era was a period during which the British Class system was very rigid Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe.
Some of these usages will also be geographically specific. This is especially true of periodizing labels derived from individuals or ruling elites, such as the Jacksonian Era in America, the Meiji Era in Japan, or the Merovingian Period in France. Andrew Jackson (March 15 1767 June 8 1845 was the seventh President of the United States (1829&ndash1837 The, or Meiji era, denotes the 45-year reign of the Meiji Emperor, running in the Gregorian calendar, from 23 October 1868 to 30 July The Merovingians (also Merovings) were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region (known as Francia in Latin Cultural terms may also have a limited reach. Thus the concept of the "Romantic period" may be meaningless outside of Europe and European-influenced cultures. Likewise, "the 1960s", though technically applicable to anywhere in the world according to Common Era numbering, has a certain set of specific cultural connotations in certain countries. For this reason it may be possible to say such things as "The 1960s never occurred in Spain. " This would mean that the sexual revolution, counterculture, youth rebellion and so on never developed during that decade in Spain's conservative Roman Catholic culture and under Francisco Franco's authoritarian regime. The sexual revolution refers to the well-documented changes in social thought and codes of behaviour related to sexuality throughout the Western world that continues to evolve Counterculture (also " counter-culture " is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a Cultural group, or Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde (born December 4, 1892 in Ferrol, died November 20, 1975 in Madrid Likewise it is possible to claim, as the historian Arthur Marwick has, that "the 1960s" began in the late 1950s and ended in the early 1970s. Arthur John Brereton Marwick, ( 29 February, 1936 &ndash 27 September, 2006) was a Professor in History. His reason for saying this is that the cultural and economic conditions that define the meaning of the period covers more than the accidental fact of a 10 year block beginning with the number 6. This extended usage is termed the "long 1960s". This usage derives from other historians who have adopted labels such as "the long 19th century" (1789–1914) to reconcile arbitrary decimal chronology with meaningful cultural and social phases. The long 19th century, defined by Eric Hobsbawm, a British Marxist Historian and Author, refers to the period between the years Similarly, an Eighteenth Century may run 1714–1789. Eric Hobsbawm has also argued for what he calls "the short twentieth century", encompassing the period from the First World War through to the end of the Cold War. The short twentieth century, defined by Eric Hobsbawm, a British Marxist Historian and Author, refers to the period between the years World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the
Similar problems attend other labels. Is it possible to use the term "Victorian" outside of Britain? It sometimes is used when it is thought that its connotations usefully describe the politics, culture and economic conditions characteristic of the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless periodizing terms often have negative or positive connotations which may affect their usage. This would include "Victorian", which is often used negatively to suggest sexual repression and class conflict. Other labels such as "Renaissance" have strongly positive characteristics. As a result, these terms will sometimes be extended in meaning. Thus the "English Renaissance" is virtually identical in meaning to the "Elizabethan Period". However the Carolingian Renaissance is said to have occurred during the reign of the Frankish king Charlemagne. The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries with the peak of the activities The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group Charlemagne (ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus meaning Charles the Great) (747 – 28 January 814 was King of the Franks from 768 to his There is a space of approximately seven hundred years between these two renaissances. Other examples include the "American Renaissance" of the 1820s-60s, referring mainly to literature, and the "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1920s, referring mainly to literature but also to music and the visual arts. This article is all about the American Renaissance in architecture and the arts The Harlem Renaissance was named after the anthology The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke in 1925
Because of these various positive and negative connotations, some periods are luckier than others regarding their names, although this can lead to problems such as the ones outlined above. The conception of a "rebirth" of Classical Latin learning is first credited to an Italian poet Petrarch, the father of Humanism, a term that was not coined until the 19th century, but the conception of a rebirth has been in common use since Petrarch's time. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar The dominant usage of the word Renaissance refers to the cultural changes that occurred in Italy, and which culminated in the High Renaissance at around 1500. This concept applies dominantly to the visual arts, referring to the work of Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime One of them by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone (in Italian Raffaello) (April 6 or March 28 1483 – April 6 1520 was an Italian painter and Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( April 15 1452 – May 2 1519 was an Italian Polymath, having been a scientist Mathematician, Engineer Secondarily it is applied to other arts, but it is disputed whether it is useful to describe a phase in economic, social and political history. Most professional historians (defined as paying members of organizations devoted to the propagation of history in higher education, like the American Historical Association) now refer to the historical periods commonly known as the Renaissance and the Reformation as "the Early Modern Period". The American Historical Association ( AHA) is the oldest and largest society of Historians and Teachers of History in the United States The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere The Protestant Reformation was a reform movement in Europe that began in 1517 though its roots lie further back in time The early modern period is a term used by historians to refer to the period in Western '''Europe''' and its first colonies which spans the three centuries between There is a gradual change in the courses taught and books published to correspond to the change in period nomenclature, which in part reflects differences between social history and cultural history. The new nomenclature suggests a broader geographical coverage and a growing attention to the relationships between Europe and the wider world. The timeframe is also slightly different, in that "Renaissance" tends to refer to events over a generally earlier period than "Early Modern".
Notable periods
The term Middle Ages also derives from Petrarch. He was comparing his own period to the Ancient or Classical world, seeing his time as a time of rebirth after a dark intermediate period, the Middle Ages. "Classical literature" redirects here For literature in Classical languages outside the Graeco-Roman sphere see Ancient literature. The idea that the Middle Ages was a "middle" phase between two other large scale periodizing concepts, Ancient and Modern, still persists. It can be sub-divided into the Early, High and Late Middle Ages. The Early Middle Ages is a period in the History of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th 12th and 13th centuries (AD 1000&ndash1299 The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe European history in the period of the 14th and 15th centuries (AD 1300–1499 The term Dark Ages is no longer in common use among modern scholars because of the difficulty of using it neutrally, though some writers have attempted to retain it and divest it of its negative connotations. This article is about the phrase "Dark Age(s" as a characterization of the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe The term "Middle Ages" and especially the adjective medieval can also have a negative ring in colloquial use ("the barbaric treatment of prisoners in such-and-such a prison is almost medieval") but this does not carry over into academic terminology. However other terms, such as Gothic architecture, used to refer to a style typical of the High Middle Ages have largely lost the negative connotations they initially had, acquiring new meanings over time (see Gothic architecture and Goth subculture). See also Gothic art Gothic architecture is a style of Architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. See also Gothic art Gothic architecture is a style of Architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. The goth subculture is a contemporary Subculture found in many countries
The Gothic and the Baroque were both named during subsequent stylistic periods when the preceding style was unpopular. The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc The word "Gothic" was applied as a pejorative term to all things Northern European and, hence, barbarian, probably first by Giorgio Vasari. Giorgio Vasari ( 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian painter and Architect, who is today famous Vasari is also credited with first using the term "Renaissance" (rinascita), the period during which he was art historian, artist and architect. Giorgio Vasari coined the term "Gothic" in an effort to describe, particularly architecture, that he found objectionable, supposedly saying "it is as if the Goths built it". Giorgio Vasari ( 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian painter and Architect, who is today famous The word "baroque" (probably) was used first in late 18th century French about the irregular natural pearl shape and later about an architectural style perceived to be "irregular" in comparison to the highly regular Neoclassical architecture of that time. Subsequently these terms have become purely descriptive, and have largely lost negative connotations. However the term "Baroque" as applied to art (for example Rubens) refers to a much earlier historical period than when applied to music (Händel, Bach). WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" This reflects the difference between stylistic histories internal to an art form and the external chronological history beyond it.
In many cases people living through a period are unable to identify themselves as belonging to the period that historians may later assign to them. This is partly because they are unable to predict the future, and so will not be able to tell whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of a period. Another reason may be that their own sense of historical development may be determined by religions or ideologies that differ from those used by later historians.
It is important to recognise the difference between self-defined historical periods, and those which are later defined by historians. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a general belief that culture, politics and history were entering a new era - that the new century would also be a new era in human experience. This belief was repeated at the beginning of the 21st century, though in a very different way. Other cultural and historical phases have only been described many years, or even centuries, later.
Origins of periodization
The origins of periodization is very old and first became part of the Western tradition in the myths of Ancient Greece and The Bible. Virgil spoke of a distant Golden Age and recurrent cycles of history. Publius Vergilius Maro ( October 15, 70 BCE &ndash September 21, 19 BCE later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or The term Golden age is best known from Greek mythology and legend but can also be found in other ancient cultures (see below The Bible outlines a narrative of history from Creation to the End of time. One Biblical periodization scheme commonly used in the Middle Ages was Saint Paul's theological division of history in to three ages: the first before the age of Moses (under nature); the second under Mosaic law (under law); the third in the age of Christ (under grace). Paul the apostle (שאול התרסי Šaʾul HaTarsi, meaning " Saul of Tarsus " Σαούλ Saul and Σαῦλος Saulos and Moses ( Latin: Moyses,; Greek: grc Mωυσής in both the Septuagint and the New Testament; Arabic: ar موسىٰ But perhaps the most widely discussed periodization scheme of the Middle Ages was the Six Ages of the World, where every age was a thousand years counting from Adam to the present, with the present time (in the Middle Ages) being the sixth and final stage. The Six Ages of the World is a Christian historical Periodization outline first written about by Saint Augustine circa 400 AD Adam (אָדָם ʼĀḏām, "dust man mankind" آدم; Ge'ez: አዳ and Eve (חַוָּה Ḥawwā, "living
Periodization of origins
It is easy to confuse the origins of periodization with the periodization of origins. The periodization of origins is an attempt to classify time periods in the distant past for which there is no direct record. As stated in the introduction above, any sort of periodization is subject to qualifications and contentions which should not be taken lightly. Periodization of origins has its own challenges apart from, say, a periodization which relies on text, which are subtle and philosophically complex.
One tactic for periodization of the distant past, as in Anthropology, is to rely on events, such as the invention of some tool or the origins of language, which are known to exist, but about which little is known in detail. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of
See also
References
- Lawrence Besserman, ed. A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work The categorization of Time into discrete named blocks is called Periodization. A logarithmic timeline is a Timeline laid out according to a Logarithmic scale. , The Challenge of Periodization : Old Paradigms and New Perspectives, 1996, ISBN 0-8153-2103-1. See Chapter 1 for an overview of the postmodernist position on Periodization. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism
- Bentley, J. H. 1996. Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World History. American Historical Review (June): 749–770.
- Grinin, L. 2007. Leonid Grinin (born in 1958 is a philosopher of History and sociologist Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In: History & Mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P. 10-38. ISBN 9785484010011.
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