Synchronous optical world history
The synchronized optical world history by Arno and Anneliese Peters is a synchronistic special form of the historical atlas in the tradition of the synchronistic tables of the 18th century. The tables based on bar charts over decimal stripes appeared for the first time in 1952. In 1962, a French edition, translated by Robert Minder , followed . In 1970 the two-volume “Great Synchronous Optical World History”, expanded to include the prehistory , followed .
The time atlas presents the history of human civilization at the same time ( synchronously ) at a glance ( optically ) . Peters attached particular importance to not concentrating on European civilization or on military and political events.
The overview covers the period from the 30th century BC. BC to the 20th century AD. The representation is laid out in a kind of tabular form; 100 years per double page and one year per column are shown in an overview. The presentation in the time atlas is organized as follows:
- The heading of the century is a statement about the basic tendencies and the outstanding events .
- In the following two lines the most important economic and intellectual events are presented. Peters further differentiates here:
- The area economy in technology, science, discoveries, and community life
- The area of intellectual life in art, poetry, philosophy, law and urban planning
- In the middle there are lifelines of contemporary personalities from the fields of economy, intellectual life, religion and politics.
- The last two lines contain facts from the areas
- Politics (state, social order) and
- Wars or revolutions (uprisings, civil wars).
The basic volume (time atlas) is supplemented by the index volume , an alphabetically arranged register . It deepens the individual topics using terms, places, states, people, epochs and events. Colored font creates indirect references between the historical context in the base volume and the details in the index volume.
criticism
After it was published, the work was criticized. The charge was that the avowed socialist Peters had adapted the historiography of socialist ideas. The news magazine Der Spiegel wrote : "The socialist mentality, which Peters never denied [...], had to make his presentation of history anti-dynastic, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical."
expenditure
- Arno Peters, Anneliese Peters: Synchronous optical world history . Universum, Frankfurt am Main 1952
- Arno Peters: Synchronous Optical World History . 2 volumes. Two thousand and one , Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-86150-370-0
- Hans-Rudolf Behrendt, Thomas Burch, Martin Weinmann: Der Digitale Peters . DVD-ROM. Zweiausendeins , Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-86150-833-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ World history: From a socialist perspective , Der Spiegel , November 19, 1952.