Site Directory

What are the Five Civilizations? Summary page providing a description of each of the five civilizations and their significant events (whatare) 501 words: Content: Splitting world history into four separate stories, we identify each of the stories in this section and offer a brief narration. For example, what is Civilization I? We say it is the story of government culminating in large political empires. And so with the other civilizations. What are they and what is their story? In addition, we look at the pattern of previous civilizations to try to predict what will happen in the future. We also speculate briefly on the future of the fifth, computer-based civilization.

What is Civilization I? Civilization as a war making machine in the first epoch of world history (description1) 564 words

What is Civilization II? Civilization as religious empire in the second epoch of world history (description2) 602 words

What is Civilization III? Civilization as educational and commercial advancement in the third epoch of world history (description3) 569 words

What is Civilization IV? Civilization as a spectacle of news and entertainment in the fourth epoch of world history (description4) 536 words

A Brief History of Government: How it developed in the first civilization and beyond (r&fcivI) 1,642 words

A Brief History of Religion: Rise and fall of the second civilization (r&fcivII) 2,110 words

A Brief History of Business and Education: Rise of the third civilization (r&fcivIII) 2,084 words

Headline Events of Civilization I: Some important events in the history of civilization as a war making machine (events1) 474 words

Headline events of Civilization II: Some important events in the history of civilization as religious empire (events2) 500 words

Headline Events of Civilization III: Some events in the history of civilization as educational and commercial advancement (events3) 395 words

Headline Events of Civilization IV: Some events in the history of civilization as a spectacle of news and entertainment (events4) 438 words

Using world history to predict the future of the First Civilization: Paying special attention to how government as an institution has changed (predict1stciv) 5,445 words

Using world history to predict the future of the Second Civilization: Paying special attention to how religion as an institution has changed (predict2ndciv) 6,894 words

Using World History to Predict the Future of the Third Civilization: Paying Special Attention to the Connection between Education and Careers (predict3rdciv ) 8,065 words

The Fifth Civilization: What will a computer based civilization become? (fifthciv) 411 words

Geeks and Nerds, personality types of the new civilization (geeks) 592 words

Communication Technologies and World History Summary page for writings about communication technologies in each civilization (communication) 258 words Content: This scheme of world history is based on changing communication technologies. When a new technology becomes dominant, it introduces a new civilization. This section looks at the relationship between communication technologies and changes in the structure of society. It also lists important inventions in the various fields of communication technology, including dates of discovery. Finally, we have two articles which explore the impact of new communication technologies. Each is associated with a technique for identifying truth.

Relationship Between Cultural Technologies and Civilization: How communication technology affects the form and content of human cultures (civtech) 844 words

Some Dates in the History of Communication: Technologies Inventions which have advanced communication (culttech) 1,706 words

Pinpointing critical change in our most recent civilizations Particular events associated with a change in civilizations (criticalchange) 3,455 words

How Communication Technology Drives Civilizations' Ideals: A series of cultural inventions have changed what we value (ctideals) 2,106 words

On the Cutting Edge of Knowledge: A short history of the most advanced techniques of establishing truth in each age (cuttingedge) 4,468 words

A Typeface for the 20th Century The Helvetica font becomes popular (helvetica) 774 words

The Origin of YouTube How a man in his mid 20s invented a product worth more than $1 billion two years later (YouTube) 701 words

The 43-Hour Day: Time spent on various devices of electronic communication in today’s multi-tasking world 729 words

 

About Religion and World History: Summary page for writings about religion in world history (religionsummary) 699 words Content: Religion is the soul or spirit of a civilization. Even after the epoch of world religion (Civilization II), the new civilizations have each brought with them their own type of religion. Religion, in a broad sense, consists of certain beliefs and models of attractive personality. The Christmas holiday has continued to evolve in accordance with civilizations. For instance, in the third epoch of civilization, it has become a “commercial holiday” which stresses shopping for gifts. This section also deals extensively with Albert Schweitzer’s views on the Messianic self consciousness of Jesus. According to Schweitzer, Jesus’ ministry was concerned with the apocalyptic advent of the “Kingdom of God”. This section also touches upon apocalyptic thinking in our own day and the use of Gematria to write poetry.

Epochal Changes in Religion (page 2): Personality as a key element of religious culture (religion2) 605 words

Epochal Changes in Religion (page 1): How religion changes with each epoch of world history, bringing different beliefs and values (religion1) 845 words

God's Authority in the World Whether his reputed word binds humanity to the end of time (knowgod) 2827 words

Why Written Language is important to Religions of the Second Epoch: How and why they are scripturally based religions (importantlanguage) 670 words

The Rite of Human Sacrifice in the Five Civilizations Some types of self-sacrifice not on an altar (humansacrifice) 622 words

The Christmas Holiday: How the Christmas holiday appears in each epoch (christmas) 453 words

Commercial Holidays and the Reaction to Consumerism: Some pressures for and against money taking over our lives (consumerism) 1,261 words

Billy Graham, a man of religion for the Entertainment Age Steadfast in commitment to Jesus while exploiting the latest communication technologies (billygraham) 1004 words

What Jesus was Thinking: A book by William McGaughey following Albert Schweitzer's “Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity” (Jesusbook) 1,730 words

Prophetic Expectations at the Time of Jesus Significant: Jewish Prophecies relating to the Messiah (jewishprophecy) 2,819 words

Life of the Historical Jesus: Significant events in Jesus' life as narrated in the Gospels (historicaljesus) 5,359 words

Biblical Prophecy and the United Nations: Is the United Nations a tool of Satan? (bibleandUN) 1,338 words

Poems of Francis Gurney Okie: Mystical verse written with the aid of Gematria (fgokie) 957 words

On the Entertainment Civilization: Summary page for materials on the fourth civilization (entertainment) 183 words Content: Five Epochs of Civilization argues that U.S. society today is focused primarily upon entertainment; hence, we are living in the fourth civilization. Its culture, focused upon rhythm, introduces nonrational values into society. Its structure of power is based upon the ability to capture the attention of individual minds in other words, to assemble an audience which can then be put to the use of selling something. However, the entertainment culture is fun loving so we have also included two unserious pieces: a “conspiracy theory” about the origins of the entertainment industry and a yarn about baseball which is true in its facts but not in its conclusions.

Contemporary political campaigns as infomercials Why give news coverage away for free when political candidates might be persuaded to pay? (infomercial) 1363 words

Campaigning for High Political Office in an Age of Entertainment: William McGaughey's Quixotic quest of the U.S. Presidency in 2004 (campaign) 2,232 words

An Assessment of the Political Dance Contest How the U.S. President is selected in 2008 (politicaldance) 793 words

Entertainment in Service of a Political Agenda New Hollywood film may be a harbinger of war with Iran (warwithiran) 1110 words

Changing Civilizations Affect Socialist Societies, Too Tough to maintain revolutionary zeal in the face of movies, television, and the internet (castro) 191 words

"Smokey Joe" Wood & the Boston Red Sox Curse: A yarn about the World Champion Boston Red Sox and its ace pitcher in 1912 (smokeyjoe) 1,005 words

Secret Beginnings of the U.S. Entertainment Industry: A tall tale about how President Taft started the U.S. entertainment industry (secretbeg) 3,182 words

Dysfunctional Celebrities In its age of ripeness, the entertainment culture focuses on this. (dysfunctionalcelebrity) 2888 words

A Nation of Way Too Many Celebrities It taxes the brain to keep track of all this entertainment-related fame. (celebrityglut) 958 words

How the Fourth Civilization might End: As commercial advertising and entertainment programming are decoupled (end) 1,320 words

The Beginning of the End of Civilization IV and its Replacement by the Next A transition from the age of entertainment to computer-based culture (end2) 2,138 words

Too Many Branded Products in TV Shows Commercial messages mercilessly loaded into entertainment programming (products) 734 words

Using world history to predict the future Using world history to predict the future (prediction) 5,385 words Content: The lead page was Google’s top rated site for the search words “predict the future”. This page is a tightly argued analysis of patterns found in previous civilizations which might be applied to our own. We have also added other pages related to historical prediction (1) factors which limit our ability to foresee the future and (2) a detailed analysis of patterns and events in the first three civilizations which support certain conclusions about the future of the institution in question. Keep in mind that this approach to prediction is based upon an organic view of human cultures in which periods of growth are followed by periods of decline. It would be familiar to students of Spengler and Toynbee.

Summary of articles related to historical prediction: Identify patterns in past civilizations to anticipate the future course of our own (predictionsummary) 280 words Content: Does knowledge of the past help to predict the future? This is a summary page, partly predictive and partly skeptical. See also "Using world history to predict the future.

My Model of Historical Prediction Building upon Spengler’s and Toynbee’s idea that civilizations exhibit life cycles analogous to the present situation  (historicalprediction) 2,667 words

Using world history to predict the future of the First Civilization: Paying special attention to how government as an institution has changed (predict1stciv) 5,445 words - second use of this page

Using world history to predict the future of the Second Civilization: Paying special attention to how religion as an institution has changed (predict2ndciv) 6,894 words - second use of this page

Using World History to Predict the Future of the Third Civilization: Paying Special Attention to the Connection between Education and Careers (predict3rdciv) 8,065 words - second use of this page

How U.S. Capitalism might End What comes after Bush's war? (capitalismend)   5,256 words

Is Prediction Even Possible? Some ways it might be (prediction1) 1,878 words

Why it’s impossible to predict the future of the stock market and such things: They require knowledge of another’s thoughts which are opaque (prediction2) 3,165 words

Statements of the Theory in Five Epochs of Civilization: Summary page for short statements of the theory in Five Epochs of Civilization by William McGaughey (statement) 131 words Content: Here we have several formulation of the thesis presented in Five Epochs of Civilization. There is also a summary of the content of each chapter in this book. Additionally, we have articles related to comparative civilizations and the “clash of civilizations”.

Description of the book, Five Epochs of Civilization: This book tells the story of humanity in terms of five civilizations (gensummary2) 417 words

Summary of Five Epochs of Civilization: World history as the story of how our society came to be (gensummary) 698 words

Summary of Individual Chapters: Synopsis of chapters in the book, “Five Epochs of Civilization” (chaptersumm) 2,331 words

A Definition of Civilization following the scheme of Five Epochs of Civilization (iscsciviliation) 883 words

World History and the Five Civilizations: An article written by William McGaughey for the Spring 2002 issue of Comparative Civilization Review (iscscarticle) 6,625 words

The social mitosis: cell like division in human societies How societies become more complex throughout world history (socialmitosis) 164 words Content: This section features a diagram of society’s changing structure as we pass through four epochs of world history. There is also a written explanation of the diagram.

Diagram of Emerging Institutions in Civilized Society The social mitosis, or process of cell like division applied to human societies (diagram) picture only

Explanation of Diagram How human society has become structurally more complex with each historical epoch (diagram2 ) 826 words

Create and Teach World History Summary page for writings about how world history might be taught (createandteach) 464 words Content: Is world history simply a subject to be taught in schools or can it become a means of instilling purpose in individuals and so of uplifting society? This web site takes the view that today’s world history curricula could stand improvement, especially in the Advanced Placement courses. It also presents a proposal developed in 2002 to create a new World History Charter School in St. Paul. Beyond this, we are encouraged to dream a bit about world history. What nontraditional approaches might be followed to make historical consciousness a living reality? How can we free history from the political agendas that currently afflict it? Above all, how can we create a universal world history, free of the ethnic and national biases found in most textbooks? Five Epochs of Civilization focuses upon communication technologies and structures of society rather than histories of particular people. This web site reaches out, however imperfectly, to persons who do not speak English by including parallel pages in several other languages.

My history education Slim on credentials but lucky to have come across Toynbee and other great historians (myhistoryeducation) 2431 words

Why World History Needs Fixing: Some criticisms of the current approach to teaching world history (fixing) 293 words

How this Web site can help to Teach or Learn History: New ways of teaching world history (teachhistory) 1,660 words

A Controversy in Academic Circles: Whether world history is driven mainly by contacts between civilizations (controversy) 1,047 words

Criticisms of Advanced Placement Curriculum in World History: How a committee of eight teachers has controlled world history theory (apworldhistory ) 3,193 words

Feedback Page: How to use this web site in teaching world history (feedback) 673 words

Proposal for a World History Charter School: In response to Gates Foundation call for five new charter high schools in St. Paul, Minnesota (charterschool ) 7,283 words

Goethe's Three Questions: We seek to find the right story (goethe) 428 words

What can a Theory of World History Do for Me? Finding the right story in which to insert oneself (doforme) 909 words

Creating World History: Proposals to build a structure of writings and images to tell the story of humanity (createhistory) 2,302 words

A "Dictionary of Man" Bob Geldof and BBC team up to record every human society on earth (geldof) 1,054 words

Some Possible Projects: Related to World History Ideas of different ways to promote world history (possibleprojects) 1,375 words

The Wrong Kind of History: Which makes other people look bad (wronghistory) 1,447 words

Talk on Holocaust Studies at MCHE Conference A view on the proper use of history (holocaust) 3,616 words

Call for Another Model of History: One which views history as a creation story rather than the triumph of a particular people (model) 4,781 words

A New Model of History in China: A textbook introduced in Shanghai schools downgrades politics for the sake of a more balanced picture of human affairs (shanghaihistory) 646 words

A Further Perspective: Parable of the elephant and the blind men (elephant) 300 words

About these Languages: Where English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian are widely spoken and by how many (language) 652 words

World Population Human population of the earth in selected years between 10000 B.C. and 1999 A.D. (population) 270 words

On the Nature of Civilizations Summary page with articles on the nature of civilizations (civnature) 377 words Content: Civilizations are differentiated from other kinds of society by their greater degree of wealth and cultural sophistication. This is considered a desirable condition. At the same time, wars and social decay are a part of their historical experience.

What is Civilization? A society or culture? (civilizationscheme) 1,046 words

Civilization and the Envious Outsider: Images of Wealth and Refinement to Beguile the Masses (outsider) 1,666 words

A Neo-Hegelian View of Human Societies Why the world moves in a direction of greater complexity (complexity) 3,078 words

An “Internal Dynamic” causing the Decline and Fall of Civilizations 2,673 words A presentation at the 39th conference of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations

Business versus Government: Struggle between civilizations (busvgov) 2,549 words

China, Persia, and the "Clash of Civilizations" Random thoughts on contact between diverse civilizations (chinapersia) 2,855 words

An Underground View of the 39th ISCSC International Conference at Western Michigan University in June 2009 26,241 words

Symbolic Implications of my “Underground View” of the 2009 ISCSC Conference 1,753 words

 

Book Home Page: How to order Five Epochs of Civilization (book) 255 words Content: This page is about the book, Five Epochs of Civilizations: World History as Emerging in Five Civilizations. How can a viewer order this book? Who is the author? Who is the author’s father? What have book reviewers said about Five Epochs of Civilization? What other books has the author written and published?

About the Author of Five Epochs of Civilization: Events in the Life of William McGaughey (author) 795 words

William McGaughey, Sr.: Father of the author of Five Epochs of Civilization (authorsfather) 2,006 words

Reviews of Five Epochs of Civilization: Reviews of book from Pakistan, China, India, Nigeria, and the U.S. (bookreviews) 4,452 words

Other books written by William McGaughey: Books on various subjects spanning a 25 year period (otherbooks) 297 words

Rhythm and Self-Consciousness Ideals and issues for the entertainment culture (rhythmsummary) 349 words Content: This section explores the philosophical ideals of the fourth civilization, which is a culture of entertainment. An elusive quality, here given the name of "rhythm", characterizes outstanding performances, whether in drama, music, or athletics. Self-consciousness is an impediment to the proper mental conditioning needed to achieve rhythm.

The Concepts of Rhythm and Self-Consciousness Rhythm as an ideal of Electronic Civilization; Self-Consciousness, an Obstacle to Rhythm (rhythm) 774 words

Rhythm and Self-Consciousness: An Example of Each Rhythm in an examination in Aikido; Self-Consciousness lacking in a boy's thought (rhythm1) 415 words

Rhythm and Self Consciousness: New Ideals for an Electronic Civilization - About the book, Rhythm and Self Consciousness, and its two concepts (rhythm2) 158 words

WorldHistorySite.com - earlier version Gateway to world history (gateway2 ) 191 words

Links WorldHistorySite.com: Links to other web sites (links)

Letters to the Editor: Reader comments intended for publication (letters) 151 words

 

What People are Visiting on this Website What are their interests and what languages do they speak? An analysis of hits to the various pages, broken down by language (count)

Site Directory A listing of pages in Worldhistorysite.com organized by topic (sitedirectory)

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