A Very Brief History of the World: Why the World Is the Way It Is Today

By Allen Abramowitz

From the beginning, the story of humans was shaped by geography, chemistry, and evolution. Our ideas and ambition would pollinate trade and science and collide in politics and war. This book shows how nations and cultures were connected through events that occurred all across the globe. This is our history - in a nutshell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Abramowitz
• Release date: Jun 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311875464

Allen Abramowitz

Allen has a unique view on the history of the world, not only from an academic point of view as an American but also as a world traveler. Allen was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan where he had a traditional education.He studied biochemistry at Cornell University, but found that his interest was more global. Allen had a sense of adventure and curiosity about the rest of the world, so he left and found work on a freighter, making his way to Europe.Traveling around Europe, he picked up languages, until he finally settled down in Paris studying international relations at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, aka Sciences Po, learning history from a French perspective.His mentors included his law professor who sat on the International Court in the Hague, his Russian history professor, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, his government professor who wrote the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic and his economics professor who subsequently became prime minister.After graduating, he continued his travels, working on a coal barge on the Rhine and an oil barge on the Seine. He travelled to Israel to work on a kibbutz. Upon returning home to New York, he began a career in computer programming.Allen married and raised a family. At a back-to-school night he learned how history was taught in school in a series of unlinked events that did not make sense. He decided to use his expertise to write a book that made history simple and linked everything together to better understand our world today.He currently works as an analyst in information technology in the New York City metropolitan area and has taught International Relations as an adjunct professor.

Book preview

A Very Brief History of the World

Why the World Is the Way It Is Today

By Allen Abramowitz

Copyright 2022 Allen Abramowitz

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Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I – The World

1 The Physical World

2 The Age of Humans

Part II – Civilization

3 River Civilization

4 Indo-European Invasion

5 Europe

6 The Muslim World

Part III – Making the Modern World

7 Unifying Eurasia

8 The Age of Discovery

9 The European Awakening

10 World Empire

11 Revolution

Part IV – World War

12 Nationalism

13 World War I

14 World War II

15 The Cold War

Part V – New World Order

16 The End of History

17 The Clash of Civilizations

18 A Multipolar World

Epilogue

Bibliography

About the Author

Preface

I studied international relations at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris. This led me to become a student of history. Knowing history helps to understand international relations. History provides the context of foreign policy. History is not just for academics. Knowing history helps everyone understand current events. This is not a book about politics. I have provided the historical context for you to understand current events and draw your own conclusions.

Realizing that history is not the most interesting subject in the world for many, this history is very brief. The French and American approaches to learning history are very different. In America we learn the facts and later we put them all together. The problem is that you memorize a whole bunch of facts, but you don’t have a coherent narrative to make sense of it all. In France you learn the story and later you learn the facts. I like the French approach. My purpose in this book is to tell the story from beginning to end as briefly as possible. There are many interesting works that explain history. Each one stands on its own. I connected them all together into one story. It should read like a novel.

Geography determines the course of history. Science is the main source of pre-history. Pre-history is all that time before recorded history and lays the foundation. I include brief explanations of science where science is relevant to understanding history. I start from the Big Bang. I am amazed to see history unfold before my eyes.

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Introduction

In the beginning there was a single continent. It broke apart into seven continents. Two of those continents, Europe and Asia, make up Eurasia. Three of those continents, Africa, Asia and Europe, make up the world island, connected together by land.

The history of the world will take place in Eurasia on the world island. What happens elsewhere will be overshadowed by what takes place there.

Humans originated in Africa and migrated to Eurasia. Civilizations start in the warm river valleys of southern Asia. Warrior groups from the arid north invade and take over the river valley civilizations to the south or assimilate into them.

Asia is more advanced than Europe. The Mongols unify Eurasia and commerce expands. The Turks block travel and Europe will search for ways around the Turks. Portugal will sail east. Spain will sail west and discover America.

Europe colonizes America. European powers will build empires that span the globe. This competition will lead to global war. The New World will bring balance to the Old.

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Part I – The World

Geography and climate drive the story of history.

*****

Science explains how the universe and the Earth were formed over time. The land formed continents surrounded by oceans of water. A super continent broke up into seven continents. Europe, Asia and Africa were connected by land. History would take place on the Eurasian landmass.

Humans would evolve in Africa and then migrate in waves first to Asia and then to Europe and finally from Asia to North America. They lived as nomads in small groups during the Stone Age at the end of which agriculture was discovered and people began to settle down in one place. The Stone Age ended with the Bronze Age.

1 The Physical World

The Universe (13.7B years)

The universe began 13.7 billion years ago. All the matter and energy in the universe was concentrated at the center of the universe and exploded outward in a Big Bang. The Universe continues to expand to this day. The same amount of matter and energy that existed then exists today.

Understanding the world is based on science.

Earth (4.5B years)

Geography drives the course of history.

The fundamental forces formed the planet Earth 4.5 billion years ago. The planet consists of rock, (the elements of which are identified below in Chemistry,) covered by oceans of water. The rock and oceans are covered by layers of atmosphere.

All matter on Earth can assume one of 3 states. At low temperatures elements and compounds are solid. As they are heated up, they become liquid. As more heat is added they turn into gas. All elements and compounds have different temperatures at which they change state.

The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet. Air contains 78% nitrogen (N2), 21% oxygen (O2) and less than 1% carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O).

The oceans cover the planet where the elevation is low. 71% of the surface is covered by salt-water oceans. The oceans consist of water (H2O) and salt, primarily sodium chloride (NaCl). The remainder consists of continents and islands.

The planet’s outer surface is divided into 8 rigid tectonic plates. These plates move across the earth’s surface over time coming together, pulling apart and sliding past one another causing earthquakes, volcanos, mountain-building, and ocean trenches along plate boundaries.

Earth's interior is active with an iron inner core, a liquid outer core and a thick mantle.

250 million years ago, there was only one continent. It was called Pangaea. That supercontinent separated into North America and South America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica that exist today.

Europe and Asia are connected into a single land mass called Eurasia. Asia is connected to Africa at the Isthmus of Suez, a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The mainland of Africa and Eurasia has been referred to as the World Island. North America and South America are connected at the Isthmus of Panama, a narrow strip of land between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

History will take place on the World Island.

Physics 101. There are four fundamental forces in the universe and they act between the elementary particles of matter. They are gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.

Physicists are breaking down elementary particles to see whether they are in turn composed of even smaller elementary particles. Those particles are called quarks. For our purposes we will simply refer to them as particles.

The strong nuclear interaction is the interaction responsible for holding particles together to form neutrons and protons and holding neutrons and protons together to form the nuclei of atoms. The electromagnetic interaction acts on electrically charged particles. The Weak nuclear interaction is a repulsive short-range interaction responsible for radioactivity that acts on electrons. Gravitational interaction is a long-range attractive interaction that acts on all particles with mass.

Physics helps to understand the universe, whereas chemistry helps to understand our planet.

Chemistry 101. The atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons. Electrons are negatively charged particles; protons are positively charged particles; and neutrons are neutral particles. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons. An atom always contains an equal number of protons and electrons and is therefore electrically neutral. An atom is classified as an element by the number of protons in its nucleus. The number of protons determines what the chemical element is. A chemical element is distinguished by its atomic number.

The number of neutrons in the nucleus determines the isotope of the element. It is still the same element and has the same chemical properties. All isotopes of a given element share the same number of protons, but differ in the number of neutrons. Isotopes are the same chemical element. Each isotope has the same chemical properties but a different atomic weight because each has a different number of neutrons. Protons and neutrons weigh much more than electrons. A neutron weighs as much as a proton and electron combined. The atomic weight is the total mass of protons, neutrons, and electrons in a single atom.

An element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number. All chemical matter consists of these elements. There are over a hundred elements, of which 94 occur naturally. 80 elements have stable isotopes. Elements with atomic numbers 83 or higher are unstable because at that size the weak nuclear force is stronger than the strong nuclear force. They undergo radioactive decay. The most common elements are Hydrogen (H), Oxygen (O), Carbon (C), Iron (Fe), Nitrogen (N), Silicon (S), Copper (Cu), Silver (Ag) and Gold (Au).

Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles. A decay results when an atom with one type of nucleus transforms into a different nucleus containing different numbers of protons and neutrons. The original nucleus and the resulting nuclei are different chemical elements, and thus the decay results in the creation of atoms of new elements. Nuclear transmutation occurs either through radioactive decay where no outside particle is needed or through nuclear reactions in which an outside particle reacts with a nucleus.

A negatively-charged electron between two positively-charged nuclei will attract both of them via the electromagnetic force. These electrons cause the nuclei to be attracted to each other, and this attraction results in the chemical bond. A molecule is a group of at least two atoms held together by chemical bonds that is characterized by the sharing of electrons between the atoms and allows the formation of chemical compounds. Elements form compounds to become more stable. They become stable when they have the maximum number of possible electrons in their outermost energy level.

Aside from Hydrogen and Helium which can hold only 2 electrons in their outer shells, other elements can hold up to 8 in their outer shell. Only the electrons in the outermost shell determine how the atom reacts chemically with other atoms. Atoms with one electron in the outer shell are highly reactive because the electron is easily removed. Atoms with one electron less than a closed shell are also highly reactive because of a tendency to gain the missing electron. Metals have one or two electrons in their outer shell.

Chemistry helps to understand the Earth and all living things.

The Science of Life: Organic Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, Evolution

Over the course of time carbon-based life forms develop on Earth.

Organic Chemistry 101: Carbon contains 4 electrons in its outer shell. The outer shell gives up its 4 electrons or needs to gain 4 electrons to complete its shell. This allows carbon to form huge complex molecules made up of carbon bonded with