XII. Render the text close to its original variant. I. Look through the words and expressions and learn them:

Unit XXVI

I. Look through the words and expressions and learn them:

Ø from a global perspective – з точки зору всесвітнього масштабу;

Ø focal points – центральні пункти;

Ø to proliferate – зростати/збільшуватися;

Ø a unified framework – уніфікована/об’єднана структура;

Ø by convention – звичайно;

Ø a gradual accretion – поступове зростання;

Ø quantum leap – стрибок у розвитку;

Ø paradigm shift – переоцінка цінностей;

Ø in the wake of – по слідам/слідом за;

Ø to foster – сприяти розвиткові;

Ø scattered habitations – розрізненні поселення;

Ø to coalesce (into) – об’єднуватися/зростатися у єдине ціле;

Ø employing movable type – використання рухомого штампу;

Ø discrete field – окрема галузь

II. Read and translate the text:

WORLD HISTORY

World History is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. It examines history from a global perspective.

Unlike most history writing of the 19 ^th and most of the 20 ^th centuries, which focused on narratives of individuals, and on national and ethnic perspectives, World History looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures. World historians use a thematic approach, with two major focal points: integration (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience).

The study of world history is in some ways a product of the current period of accelerated globalization. This period is tending both to integrate various cultures and to highlight their differences.

The advent of World History as a distinct field of study was heralded in the 1980's by the creation of the World History Association and of graduate programs at a handful of universities. Over the past 20 years, scholarly publications, professional and academic organizations, and graduate programs in World History have proliferated. It has become an increasingly popular approach to teaching history. Many new textbooks are being published with a World History approach.

Many works are analogous to World History, in that they discuss "the history of the world" in a unified framework — for example; it was a genre popular in the 19th century with universal history, and with Christian historians going back to at least the 4th century. Shortly after World War I several popular books were written which dealt with the history of the world, though with a somewhat different approach. These included the children's book The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik Willem van Loon and the textbook The Outline of History (1918) by H.G. Wells.

The history of the world is human history from the first appearance of Homo sapiens to the present. Human history is marked both by a gradual accretion of discoveries and inventions, as well as by quantum leaps — paradigm shifts, and revolutions — that comprise epochs in the material and spiritual evolution of humankind.

Human history, as opposed to prehistory, has in the past been said to begin with the invention, independently at several sites on Earth, of writing, which created the infrastructure for lasting, accurately transmitted memories and thus for the diffusion and growth of knowledge. Writing, in its turn, had been made necessary in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, which had given rise to civilization, i.e., to permanent settled communities, which fostered a growing diversity of trades.

Such scattered habitations, centred about life-sustaining bodies of water — rivers and lakes — coalesced over time into ever larger units, in parallel with the evolution of ever more efficient means of transport. These processes of coalescence, spurred by rivalries and conflicts between adjacent communities, gave rise over millennia to ever larger states, and then to super states or empires. The fall of the Roman Empire in Europe at the end of antiquity signalled the beginning of the Middle Ages.

In the mid-15 ^th century, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of modern printing, employing movable type, revolutionized communication, helped end the Middle Ages and ushered in modern times, the European Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.

By the 18 ^th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology, especially in Europe, had reached a critical mass that sparked into existence the Industrial Revolution. Over the quarter-millennium since, knowledge, technology, commerce, and — concomitantly with these — war have accelerated at a geometric rate, creating the opportunities and perils that now confront the human communities that together inhabit a planet of scarce resources.

BIG HISTORY

Big History examines history on a large scale across long time frames through a multi-disciplinary approach. Big History gives a focus on the alteration and adaptations in the human experience. Big History is a discrete field of historical study that arose in the late 1980s. It is related to, but distinct from, world history, as the field examines history from the beginning of time to the present day and is thus closer to the older concept of universal history.

Big History looks at the past on all time scales, from the Big Bang to modernity, seeking out common themes and patterns. It uses a multi-disciplinary approach from the latest findings, such as biology, astronomy, geology, climatology, prehistory, archeology, anthropology, cosmology, natural history, and population and environmental studies. Big History arose from a desire to go beyond the specialized and self-contained fields that emerged in the 20 ^th century and grasp history as a whole, looking for common themes across the entire time scale of history. Conventionally, the study of history is typically limited to the written word and the systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; yet this only encompasses the past 5,000 years or so and leaves out the vast majority of history and all events in time, in relation to humanity.

The first courses in Big History were experimental ones. The first book in Big History was published in 1996 by Fred Spier entitled, The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today, which offers an ambitious defense of the project and constructs a unified account of history across all time scales. One notable text in Big History is David Christian's Maps of Time:An Introduction to Big History, which explores history from the first micro-seconds of the Big Bang, to the creation of the solar system, to the origins of life on earth, the evolution of humans, the agricultural revolution, modernity, and the 20 ^th century. Christian examines large-scale patterns and themes, and provides perspective of time scales.