BBCi - Space - Big Bang: "The Big Bang theory tells us how the Universe began and is evolving. In essence, it is a theory that was created to explain two facts that we know about the Universe - it is gradually expanding and cooling. In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble found that galaxies far from our own Milky Way are moving away from us. In fact, the further away galaxies are, the faster they are receding. So he concluded that the whole Universe must have been expanding. Working backwards this means that at one stage the Universe must have come from a single point."

BBCi - Science - Cavemen - Human Evolution: "Human Evolution
Take a journey through time, from the last ancestor of chimps and humans to the emergence of modern people. "

Planet Earth - Health, Medicine, Environment; A Whole-System's Perspective: "Human health depends on the proper supply of food, air and water. Infection, injury and toxicity are environmental problems. There is a consensus that smoking, drinking and accidents are important preventable health hazards. The control of infectious disease through improved hygiene and immunization is one of the great health achievements of this century. The improvement in the diversity and availability of foods has been a mixed blessing with major problems emerging to negate the potential benefits. "

| Book Review | Journal of World History, 14.4 | The History Cooperative In addition, the health transition process of England is not the sole program of achieving mortality decline, nor is it necessarily the best for every region. Here, Riley draws with good effect upon his training as a public finance historian in arguing that the western European / North American model—with its numerous and expensive redundancies—is not an effective use of resources in developing nations and is one that needs to be reexamined in the states in which it is currently practiced. This is an important and rarely examined proposition. Programs to decrease mortality in numerous regions have too frequently sought to transplant the processes begun in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The conditions—social, cultural, economic, environmental, and epidemiological, to name a few—of England in the eighteenth century are not comparable to other nations, indeed are not comparable to England today.

| Book Review | Journal of World History, 14.4 | The History Cooperative: " Riley's identification of six components of the health transition efficiently avoids the pitfalls of previous transition researchers who tended to emphasize only one component responsible for the decline of mortality. Rarely do complex phenomena have a single causation. The combination of avoidance and preventative strategies, consciously and unconsciously undertaken, accounts for the health transition, but the relative importance of any one element is impossible to quantify."

Health transition' beginning at 1800 and extending to the present day.: The global health transition has emerged from the health transitions of individual countries whose pursuit of longer life expectancies have taken divergent paths. Riley identifies six tactical areas for the reduction of mortality: public health, medicine, wealth and income, nutrition, behavior, and education. Extending life expectancy is a process that incorporates all six of these components to a greater or lesser degree.

| Book Review | Journal of World History, 14.4 | The History Cooperative In the Bronze Age of China (perhaps 2200–500 B.C.) the two great technological advances, bronze and writing, were insignificant for the economy and served only to support the ideological underpinnings of political authority. Agriculture remained essentially Neolithic, and writing was used for purposes related to religion and politics rather than production and economics.

H-Net Review: Jerry H. Bentley on Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? Yet there remain many dimensions of cross-cultural interaction in premodern times--including long-distance trade, imperial expansion, mass migrations, biological and ecological exchanges, and the spread of cultural and religious traditions--that historians have only recently begun to examine seriously.

H-Net Review: Jerry H. Bentley on Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand?: "Historical scholarship should focus on 'center-periphery structures, hegemony/rivalry within them, the process of capital accumulation, cycles in all of these, and the world system in which they operate' "

H-Net Review: Jerry H. Bentley on Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand?: "Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills accept Abu-Lughod's argument, but they hold further that the notion of a world system is applicable much earlier than the Mongol era. Indeed, Frank and Gills argue that the world has generated only one world system, that it originated about 3000 B.C.E. with interaction between Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies, and that it has expanded in size and scale ever since. Thus Immanuel Wallerstein's modern capitalist world system--now about 500 years old--represents only the latest phase of a world system that reaches back some five millennia. "

H-Net Review: Jerry H. Bentley on Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand?: "During the past two decades, world-system studies have deeply influenced scholarship in several disciplines. Elaborated as an alternative to modernization analysis, the world-system approach originally seemed relevant particularly to the modern world. Yet its main premise--that individual lands and nations do not develop in isolation, but rather in the context of a larger system that shapes their political, economic, and social experiences--might well have some application in premodern as well as modern times."

Military Industrial Complex (Harpers.org): "Total U.S. military spending the Bush Administration projects it will have spent by the end of 2008: $3,200,000,000,000»[Office of Management and Budget (Washington)].Total U.S. military spending between 1941 and 1948: $3,100,000,000,000 »[Office of Management and Budget (Washington)]"

Nuclear Weapons And Preventive War - Opinion Forum - Global Policy Forum: "In a 2003 interview with Le Monde, Mohamed El Baradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, estimated that, in addition to the known nuclear weapons powers, 35 to 40 countries were currently capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons on short notice. Maybe none of them will ever use a nuclear weapon. But just think how many preventive wars may be triggered by false or accurate intelligence that this or that country is setting about to build one or more nukes.
Here then is the ultimate paradox of nuclear deterrence: The weapon that is supposed only to dissuade countries from going to war is turning into a, if not the, major reason for countries to go to war. "

Nuclear Weapons And Preventive War - Opinion Forum - Global Policy Forum Looking closely at the arguments for war in Iraq and at the US doctrine of preventive war, Peter Weiss concludes that nuclear weapons provide an overwhelmingly fearful and imminent threat that rallies public support for aggressive military action. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, preventive war doctrine will proliferate, he argues, and with 35-40 nations capable of producing these weapons, further conflicts are likely.

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "The newly industrializing countries of the Pacific Rim have received a reward for their extraordinary mobilization of resources that is no more than what the most boringly conventional economic theory would lead us to expect. If there is a secret to Asian growth, it is simply deferred gratification, the willingness to sacrifice current satisfaction for future gain."

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "Even a modest slowing in China's growth will change the geopolitical outlook substantially. The World Bank estimates that the Chinese economy is currently about 40 percent as large as that of the United States. Suppose that the U.S. economy continues to grow at 2.5 percent each year. If China can continue to grow at 10 percent annually, by the year 2010 its economy will be a third larger than ours. But if Chinese growth is only a more realistic 7 percent, Its GDP Will be only 82 percent of that of the United States. There will still be a substantial shift of the world's economic center of gravity, but it will be far less drastic than many people now imagine."

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "And yet there are surprising similarities. The newly industrializing countries of Asia, like the Soviet Union of the 1950s, have achieved rapid growth in large part through an astonishing mobilization of resources. "

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "If the Soviet economy had a special strength, it was its ability to mobilize resources, not its ability to use them efficiently. "

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "How, then, have today's advanced nations been able to achieve sustained growth in per capita income over the past 150 years? The answer is that technological advances have lead to a continual increase in total factor productivity--a continual rise in national income for each unit of input. In a famous estimate, MIT Professor Robert Solow concluded that technological progress has accounted for 80 percent of the long-term rise in U.S. per capita income, with increased investment in capital explaining only the remaining 20 percent."

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "We all do a primitive form of growth accounting every time we talk about labor productivity; in so doing we are implicitly distinguishing between the part of overall national growth due to the growth in the supply of labor and the part due to an increase in the value of goods produced by the average worker. Increases in labor productivity, however, are not always caused by the increased efficiency of workers. Labor is only one of a number of inputs; workers may produce more, not because they are better managed or have more technological knowledge, but simply because they have better machinery. A man with a bulldozer can dig a ditch faster than one with only a shovel, but he is not more efficient; he just has more capital to work with. The aim of growth accounting is to produce an index that combines all measurable inputs and to measure the rate of growth of national income relative to that index--to estimate what is known as 'total factor productivity.'"

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "IT IS A TAUTOLOGY that economic expansion represents the sum of two sources of growth. On one side are increases in 'inputs': growth in employment, in the education level of workers, and in the stock of physical capital (machines, buildings, roads, and so on). On the other side are increases in the output per unit of input; such increases may result from better management or better economic policy, but in the long run are primarily due to increases in knowledge."

The Myth of Asia's Miracle: "ONCE UPON a time, Western opinion leaders found themselves both impressed and frightened by the extraordinary growth rates achieved by a set of Eastern economies. Although those economies were still substantially poorer and smaller than those of the West, the speed with which they had transformed themselves from peasant societies into industrial powerhouses, their continuing ability to achieve growth rates several times higher than the advanced nations, and their increasing ability to challenge or even surpass American and European technology in certain areas seemed to call into question the dominance not only of Western power but of Western ideology."

There may not be universal rules about what makes countries grow. For a small country near major shipping routes, trade may indeed be the shortest route to economic salvation. For a large country located in a geographically disadvantaged region, a period of institution building may be the only way to escape poverty.

The total output of an economy The total output of an economy is a function of its resource endowments (labor, physical capital, human capital) and the productivity with which these endowments are deployed to produce a flow of goods and services (GDP).

World's rich and poor nationsThe spectacular gap in incomes that separates the world's rich and poor nations is the central economic fact of our time. Average income in Sierra Leone, which is the poorest country in the world for which we have data, is almost 100 times lower than that in Luxembourg, the world's richest country.

Democratizing global governance Once more, while there is discussion about democratizing global governance, it is not clear what that democratization might look like. In both cases, we see is the emergence of new arrangements of collective problem-solving. In each case, the problems they address are urgent, and in each case the new arrangements emerge because existing institutions seem inadequate to handling them...Democracy names a class of arrangements through which the interests, beliefs, principles, and ideals of persons who are subject to collective decisions are brought to bear on making those decisions: ways that the authorization to exercise power results from the collective decisions of the members of a society who are governed by that power.

Global public sphere There is now something that we can call a global public sphere with a politics focused on issues labor standards, environmental policy, health policy, trade, human rights, economic development—and with emerging institutions, norms, movements, and (contested) forms of discourse, in which the agents are not at all confined to states or officials.

Democracy and the State Much of our thinking about democracy assumes the existence of a state: by “state” I mean a politically organized society, with a central authority, operating over a territory, that monopolizes the legitimate use of force and has a wide range of policy competences (employment, environment, health, product safety, domestic security, research/development, etc.).

Democracy and democratizing decision The question is: how should we think about democracy and democratizing decision-making when the decision maker is not a state, or any other form of central authority, with the characteristics of a Westphalian sovereign—both because of some disaggregation within states, so that agencies themselves operate in policy coordination as parts of global networks , and because of large involvements of non-state actors in an emerging global public sphere ?

The United Kingdom, which used coal to launch the Industrial Revolution more than two centuries ago, cut coal use by 40 percent between 1990 and 2001 mainly by substituting natural gas.

Rich Nations Abandon Pledge to Aid Poor: "Last year, a glimmer of hope appeared when ODA from rich nations to the poor rose to $57 billion, up from $52 billion in 2001. But the news of a $5 billion increase brought little rejoicing to delegates, senior U.N. officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at a high-level ministerial meeting on FfD in New York last week. ''This increase was totally overshadowed by two other haunting statistics,'' Iyer said--the $800 billion spent on military budgets worldwide in 2002, and the $200 billion net transfer of financial resources from the South to the North. "

UH Press Journals: Journal of World History: "Devoted to historical analysis from a global point of view, the Journal of World History features a range of comparative and cross-cultural scholarship and encourages research on forces that work their influences across cultures and civilizations. Themes examined include large-scale population movements and economic fluctuations; cross-cultural transfers of technology; the spread of infectious diseases; long-distance trade; and the spread of religious faiths, ideas, and ideals. Individual subscription is by membership in the World History Association."

Cultural Expression During The Middle Ages: "During the entire Middle Ages Latin served as an international means of communication. This common tongue provided much of the cohesion of the Middle Ages, for virtually all the crucial communications of the church, governments, and schools were in Latin."

International World History Project: Mesopotamia to World War II: "Civilization is a triumph of mind over matter, of reason over instinct and of the distinctly human over man's animal nature. These are what have made possible civilization, as well as culture, its constant and necessary companion. A thorough understanding of what civilization and culture are requires a knowledge of all the qualities that make up human nature and a full understanding of all historical developments. A sense of the past is a light that illuminates the present and directs attention toward the possibilities of the future. "

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "Identify connections. World historians seek out connections among events and processes in the past and also among the models and disciplines with which we explore the past. In particular since the models may refer to one or several areas under study, it is important to seek out linkages among the subsystems within the topic under study. World history links both the accidental and the systemic connections in the places, times, and themes of the past to help explain the broader patterns."

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "Modeling the dynamics. World historians, in seeking to link disparate bodies of information into coherent stories, must formalize their logic rather than wait for the facts to speak for themselves. The models of historians may range from explicitly detailed and deductive theories to attractive but imprecise metaphors. In any case, the model needs to be explored to its limit in search of ideas to be tested, and it must highlight the dynamics of global change. Modeling world history requires that analysts consider cases, networks, systems, and debates and develop the art of conducting several of these activities at once. "

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "The issue of scale in world history: the limits in space, time, and topical coverage".

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: " Another great debate centers on nationalism and nationhood. In terms of dominance, the question is whether nationhood was a system of politics developed in the North Atlantic that was later exported to the rest of the world. In terms of connection, the question is how nationhood became the political organization of everyone."

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: " Political and economic history--> problems of governance and on the production, consumption, and exchange of goods and services. For social history---> dimensions of family and community,technological history-->centering on human devices for control of nature; ecological history, addressing at once the influence of nature on human society and the impact of humanity on the environment; and the history of health, focusing on problems of illness and healing. For cultural history-->full range of humans' representations of their experience and understandings.

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "National perspectives and national histories remain significant, even among world historians, but it has now become almost automatic for world historians to view 'the nation' as only one of numerous social perspectives and, in viewing the nation, to consider it from any of several disciplinary perspectives."

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "the types of historical problems and the types of interpretive solutions have changed with time, as the character of society has changed, and as our knowledge about the physical world, the organization of society, and the patterns of culture has expanded periodically. Despite this succession of changes, it remains remarkable to see how well such early writers as Herodotus and Sima Qian can speak to people of today."

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "The world-historical debates over politics, the social order, and the economy developed along the historians' path; the new discoveries in biology, geology, linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology led to the expansion of work along the scientific-cultural path."

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "several sub-fields of world history :global political,economic history (historically the strongest sub-fields) with recent developments in social history; with the interplay of technological, ecological, and health history; and with the many and varied aspects of cultural history."

BBC - Gene Stories - Future of Reproduction: IntroNews articles about cloning and designer children lead us to wonder how couples of the future will make babies. Will they rely on sex as our parents and grandparents did, or will some suite of science-fiction technologies supplant what we think of as “natural” human reproduction, largely moving it out of the bedroom and into the laboratory?

World History Connected | Vol. 1 No. 1| Patrick Manning: Navigating World History: A Synopsis: "World history, newly enabled by the expanded methods, differs from previous historical studies in addressing a wider range of topics, specifying previously neglected connections among arenas of human experience, tracing broad patterns in the past, and clarifying relationships among different scales of the world's events and processes. For all its difficulties, it is one of the most exciting areas in scholarship and teaching today.22 "

Letter From Asia: China Is Romping With the Neighbors (U.S. Is Distracted) A new team of leaders in Beijing who came to power last spring — President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao — have led the charge, personally traveling in the region bearing sizable investments and diplomatic warmth. In fact, some forward leaning analysts think China may already have become Asia's leading power.

Foreign Affairs - China's New Diplomacy - Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel: "In a sense, the evolution of China's foreign policy began even more than a decade ago: under Deng, who, as supreme leader, initiated China's first major diplomatic transformation by launching the 'reform and opening' movement in the late 1970s. Prior to Deng, Mao had rejected the rules of the international system and sought to overthrow it, pursuing change through revolution instead. Mao's foreign policy was noted for its bombastic language, strong opposition to the superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union), close association with developing countries, relative isolation from international organizations, and economic autarky.
Deng took China in the opposite direction. To facilitate economic modernization at home, he promoted engagement with the international community. China expanded its international profile by significantly increasing its participation in intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, especially financial ones, and China gradually began to emerge from its Mao-era isolation."

Foreign Affairs - China's New Diplomacy - Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel: "The recent crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons has had at least one unexpected aspect: the crucial -- and highly effective -- intervention of Beijing. China's steady diplomacy is a sign of how much things have changed in the country, which has long avoided most international affairs. Recently, China has begun to embrace regional and global institutions it once shunned and take on the responsibilities that come with great-power status. Just what the results of Beijing's new sophistication will be remains to be seen; but Asia, and the world, will never be the same."

Trade1. Long distance trade was slow-moving, whether seaborne or overland. Carts were drawn by animals; ships were propelled by wind or by human rowers. 2. It moved in small batches. Vehicles did not have a high freight capacity. In the case of ships, capacity did increase in the 1600s; but the first real increase in freight capacity came only with railroads in the 1800s. 3. It follows logically that such trade would concentrate on high-priced luxury goods (Chinese silk, spices such as black pepper from the western coast of what is now India, and copper and gold from Africa). Everyday items of consumption, or subsistence goods, such as rice and wheat, by contrast, were traded locally. One way to think about this is that long-distance transport was so expensive that only high-priced items were worth transporting that far.

Mit Characteristics of Long Distance Trade Before1500.