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When did societies become modern? ‘Big history’ dashes popular idea of Axial Age

Humanity’s supposed singular transition to modernity in the first millennium bc was much messier than previously thought, finds sweeping study of historical data.
  1. Laura Spinney
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It’s an idea that has been influential for more than 200 years: around the middle of the first millennium BC, humanity passed through a psychological watershed and became modern. This ‘Axial Age’ transformed an archaic world of divine rulers, slavery and human sacrifice into a more enlightened era that valued social justice, family values and the rule of law. The appeal of the general concept is such that some have claimed humanity is now experiencing a second Axial Age driven by rapid population growth and technological change. Yet according to the largest ever cross-cultural survey of historical and archaeological data, the first of these ages never happened — or at least unfolded differently from the originally proposed narrative.

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Nature 576, 189-190 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03785-w

References

  1. Hoyer, D. & Reddish, J. (eds) Seshat History of the Axial Age (Beresta Books, 2019).

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  2. Mullins, D. A. et al. Am. Soc. Rev. 83, 596–626 (2018).

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