History is basically the study of the past. It includes the prehistory of man going back to man’s origin in Africa around 200,000 years ago. It also includes modern history, which is thought to have begun around 800 BCE, in Classical Antiquity, when many scholars started to write things down. History is divided to different periods that all fit perfectly into a chronological timeline, which makes it easier to understand and analyze.
Today, history is considered as a big component of human knowledge, along with cultural and scientific knowledge, which both overlap with history. Many historians place great emphasis on the primary sources or people writing about what first-hand experience rather than secondary sources or people who write based on hearsay. History is also put together through the use of comparisons between the primary sources to validate historical claims. For instance, the history of an invasion would be written differently by the conquered and the conquerors.
World history, on the other hand, aims to have a global view on past events. It is a perspective that acknowledges and integrates all the historical experiences of the people around the world. It is said that only through a careful examination of the shared past of humanity would we be able to view or world today in a meaningful historical context. Similar to other historians, world historians piece together narratives of the past using the records of different individual and collective experiences.
World historians search for global patterns which emerge from the countless collections of the historical narratives of the world. As they study patterns, historians make use of a thematic approach. They look for significant connections across time and geography.
There are essentially two themes which can be used to view the people and the events in world history and these would be: integration, or how all the processes in history have connects the peoples of the world; and difference or how all the patterns in history reveal the great diversity of the human experience. World history aims to bridge the tension between the two dynamic processes.
The study of history and world history is of great significance to our lives today. As novelist and human rights activist Pearl Buck once said: one faces the future with one’s past. This means that we would only be able to move forward in great stride after a good understanding of where we have been and how the world was before our existence. Although we would not be able to actually experience what has happened in history based on the many history books today, we would be able to piece together the events which brought us here and use our knowledge of history to make good decisions in life.