Saturday, July 05, 2008

Latest work

Some of the recent work I've been doing in Antiquity is starting to involve parts of Western civilization at earlier and earlier times. Most of the history of European peoples before the Romans is murky and depends on archaeological evidence, which is often rather ambiguous.
For the classical and medieval period, I've been looking more at a few countries in southeast Asia and Africa. although these early forays don't have a whole lot of context of neighboring nations to them. Modern history is getting more serious attention. I'm very near to having at least stub pages for the entire 16th century, and the 17th century is starting to include a few more particular nations, though still mostly the big ones worked back from the 20th century. The 18th century has a little more detail, although a lot of the attention is going to nations such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. I' don't have the British linked to this much yet.
One of the awkward parts of the knowledge base was that, with all the emphasis I've been putting on nations, I didn't have many external links to them. I've added a bunch so that when I need quick facts on history, or population, or land area, they will be more handy.
I have started to break down a barrier that's been bothering me: that is, including more pates for the States of the US. This is partly because consideration of the 17th century has very nearly reached the founding of Jamestown and Plymouth, and I will probably want to start working individual states forward in order to add detail to US history. I've also begun adding provinces for China. I'm a little concerned that I don't have much source material for Chinese history, but I'm sure there's plenty if I look for it.
When I was working earlier in antiquity, I decided that I needed to finish a chain of historical links to pagan religion, which is now done at the 5-century level for classical and medieval history and for modern history. I also picked up something I had left behind, which was a review of Judaism through the classical and medieval period. For some reason, Islam didn't come up, nor did many of the Asiatic religions, although with the the countries in Southeast Asia in classical and mdeieval times, I've been seeing more and more references to Buddhism.

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