The Big Picture: Turning Points in Early World History

3

Human beings have long been inveterate storytellers. Our myths, legends, “fairy tales,” oral traditions, family sagas, and more have sought to distill meaning from experience, while providing guidance for the living. Much the same might be said of modern historians, although they must operate within accepted rules of evidence. But all tellers of stories—ancient and modern alike—have to decide at what point to begin their accounts and what major turning points in those narratives to highlight. For world historians seeking to tell the story of humankind as a whole, four major “beginnings,” each of them an extended historical process, have charted the initial stages of the human journey.