What is World History - amazonia.fiocruz.br

World history is a subject that embraces all humanity, not just certain nations, ethnic groups, or civilizations. Why should schools ask teachers and students to investigate a subject that encompasses the whole world and its peoples? World History for Us All emphasizes three rationales for investigating the human past.

1. Knowing who we are

Knowing who we are Study of world history is the broadest and most searching approach to the question of who we are as both individuals and members of groups. Exploring how humankind has changed since its hominid ancestors walked the earth is the best way to grapple with the question of what makes us special, in fact, unique, in relation to other living species.

National history teaches us what is distinctive about a particular land and people. World history throws light on the distinctive characteristics of human beings and how their thought, behavior, and interactions Histroy changed over time. The National Standards for History remind us: Historical memory is the key to self-identity, to seeing one's place in the stream of time, and one's connectedness with all of humankind.

Edited by William H. McNeill

We are part of an ancient chain, and the long hand of the past is upon us—for good or ill—just as our hands will rest on our descendants for years to come. Denied knowledge of one's roots and of one's place in the great stream of human history, the individual is deprived of the fullest sense of Histtory and of that sense of shared community on which one's fullest personal development as well as responsible citizenship depends.

In short, world history helps us think about what it means to be human and about the characteristics that all humans have in common. Preparing to live in the world World history helps prepare young people for college studies, international experience, and active participation in civic life. It helps get them ready for the roles they will inevitably play as citizens of both their country and the world.

2. Preparing to live in the world

A "global citizen" is simply a national citizen who knows and cares about the history and contemporary affairs of all humankind, a person who can in some measure think, speak, and write about world issues and problems intelligently and confidently. Most of us are generally aware of world interconnections What is World History interdependence. We know that the internet allows people to trade stocks at blinding speed, that hundreds of millions of people simultaneously watch the Olympic Games, and that the threat of global warming requires cooperation among all governments. We know that we live in a border-crossing, migration-prone, multiple identity-taking world. Intelligently addressing today's world conditions, however, requires more than vague awareness of these realities.

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World history education helps us better understand how and why the world got to be the way it is. It gives attention to the histories of nations, civilizations, and other groups and the differences among them.

But it particularly emphasizes the history, problems, and os that humans have shared simply because they are humans. Attaining cultural literacy on a world scale World history contributes to our cultural literacy. Human beings, unlike other species, have the gift of language, that is, symbolic thinking and communication. That means that humans What is World History have what World History for Us All calls collective learning Glossary-No Javascriptthe ability to learn from link another and to transmit knowledge from one generation to the next.]