Definition
World history is the study of humanity's past as a single, connected story rather than a collection of separate national histories. It looks across all regions and eras, tracing the patterns, exchanges, and shared developments that link different societies.
Where traditional history often focused on one country or civilisation, world history emphasises connections — trade routes, migrations, the spread of ideas and technologies, empires, and global events that shaped peoples far apart from one another.
Why it matters
How it works
A world-history approach asks how developments in one place connected to developments elsewhere. The spread of agriculture, the rise and fall of empires, long-distance trade networks, the Columbian exchange, industrialisation, and globalisation are all studied as processes that crossed borders.
Historians of the world use comparison and connection as tools. They examine how the same forces — disease, technology, religion, commerce, war — played out across different societies, and how those societies influenced one another over time.