More history

I took a sweep through antiquity, and got the existing connections to European nations established and regularized. I also had most of Asia organized, and what's left involves the breaking down of Southeast Asia the way I have already mentioned. The next pass through will involve arranging peoples of Africa. I got just as far in Classical and Medieval history, except that have a connection to Balkan peoples. Still no Greece, which is going to be a pain when I get into the details. I also did the same kind of cleanup on early classical and late classical periods that I did with the four and a half millennia of antiquity.

I also started a review of Sociology. There wasn't much to it, except that I am going to be looking more at institutions and culture. For peoples of the world, I attempted a historical review, and so far, I have mostly four out of six divisions of Western Civilization, and Asia except for Southeast Asia, which I already new. I got the connections to cities as far as they have been included, which provides an incentive to start doing more of them.

I added four new nations, the Central African Republic; Moldova, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. I had to look up were Moldova is; it's wedged in between Ukraine and Romania, north of the Black Sea, and used to be part of the USSR. These are also not very high on the list of important nations I have to include, at least, not yet. I needed to finish out the list of links of Middle Eastern groups in order to categorize these, and went ahead and added links to Southeast Asian groups.

I also started a review of Western Civilization, which is well enough done already, and for all my sweeping, doesn't have enough new information to prompt any rewrites of the history I already have. I did get the list of nations that need to be linked almost up to the current list, and should have that on the next pass through. I also reviewed the connections to peoples, and got Asia linked up, with the new southeast Asian groups also.On the next pass, I'll do a review of Africa. I also got the list of cities of Western Civilization up to where it is current: The next pass, I intend to must most of these down into the subdivisions of Western Civilization. I didn't start these particular subdivision yet, that's the next part.

Peoples and another sweep

I tried adding more information on Italian prehistory. I've been using Wikipedia for a lot of high level, basic information, and what it has on this period is very sparse, so the next time through, I'll have to do a broader web search. I found the support for French peoples and France in the subdivisions, and for Germanic peoples and Germany, and Northeastern Europe weaker than I had thought, and so will save them for another pass. Asiatic peoples were rather on the edge of what I was considering in the historical periods, so I didn't add much, except that I did add pages for the subdivisions of Southeast Asia. I have four of them; Mainland Southeast Asia, Island or Archipelago Southeast Asia, Australia, and Polynesia. Most of these nations are just stubs, but with the increasing developments in history and parts of it, many of them will be examined more closely on the next pass through.

I added four cities to the list. This reaches the end of cities I had gained from one of my references sites, so I will need to add some more the next time I reach this. I also did a little review of social structure and change, and didn't add much, but I will have some links ready the next time I reach this subject.

In examination of Institutions, I decided to adjust the order or priorities to go from oldest (as far as I know) to youngest, so European Pagan religions will be considered. Although I would like to consider governments from largest to smallest, the largest governments are connected to modern times, and I am looking for earlier foundations. I am not certain yet how to handle economics; but I think I'm going to stick with the largest to smallest, and broaden out a little faster than I would with other areas. Corporations are useless for studying prehistory, but the industries and economic sectors I am deriving from them are important. Families will have to be set aside for much of the early parts of history, because I just don't have enough information about them.

Culture also presents something of a problem. Since I am concentrated on early history, I will have to emphasize material culture more than I would other areas, since that is the only thing available for archaeologists to study. Anthropology, personal studies, and science are important and will be brought in, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew just yet.

With this sweep done, there is little to do except begin another. With history in general, since the four nations I added weren't on the critical list, I set them aside for another sweep. I did tackled a re-examination of African peoples. East Africa has been growing and is almost ripe for subdivision. West Africa does need one, so I will be doing that when I get to those peoples. Most of the other aids to history have been developed far enough that I didn't need to do much rearranging; they will come up at appropriate times.

In Prehistory, I had left Latin peoples somewhat incomplete, with the connections of Italic peoples and Italy, and French peoples and France implied rather than explicit. I got those connected, I did the necessary rearranging of Middle Eastern nations. Other parts of Asia don't need much rearranging, but the divisions of Southeast Asia do need to be extended here, and African peoples also need some rearrangement. I took some notes on the extension of various other aids to prehistory which need to be worked on.

In Early prehistory, Western Civilization is in order as far as it is developed. The Middle East and the rest of Asia except for Southeast Asia are also in order, and African peoples need to be properly arranged. In Middle and Late Prehistory, Western civilization is now on order, and the Middle East is up for consideration.

I also did some expansion of Antiquity. Western Civilization is already in order as far as developed, and the rearrangement of the Middle East indicates that I can finally begin examination of the Sumerian and Babylonian peoples of Antiquity. I have mentioned how there are Greece and Portugal shaped holes in Western Civilization, but there has also been a Mesopotamia shaped hole in Antiquity which I can now start to fill. Asia up to Southeast Asia is also connected. I will also be taking a few cautions steps toward considering other aids. I stopped at the top of this section for now, and intend to resume with the particular millennia of antiquity.

Early history and Western Civilization

I'm starting once again at the top, which for history, means consideration of nations of the world. There wasn't much to add to Asiatic peoples, this mostly just opened up the possibilities for lower level subdivisions of history, but I reached the magic number of ten nations to prompt a subdivision of Southeast Asian and Oceanic peoples. This will be tackled later, but it offers the promise of being able to consider these in more and more significant detail. I'm also itching to include things such as the agricultural revolution, European pagan religion, and local government along with the history, but I feel as If I should move cautiously.

In Prehistory, however, Asiatic peoples opens up a requirement to re-arrange Middle Eastern peoples in preparation to go into more detail on them. I many have mentioned that inserting Italic peoples instead of Italy, French peoples instead of France directly, and Hispanic peoples instead of Spain directly is a bit of a nuisance at this early period, but these will be required when i start getting into their overseas extensions in modern times. And there are still gaping holes where Portugal and Greece ought to be, but I'm slowly getting there.
Antiquity is pretty much developing similarly, so I don't have much more comment, except that I picked up that pesky half millennium this time through.
I also picked up Classical history, which still at this point has the gaping holes, and also requires a review of Middle Eastern peoples. I did mention a batch of cities, because enough of them existed during this period for them to make a meaningful contribution to the study of peoples in classical and medieval times.

I also began a sweep through sociology. The application of history is rather weak at this point, because so far, only peoples are very well developed. There isn't much new to say about the history of peoples at this point. In Nations, I decided to go ahead and add four more to the list: United Arab Emirates, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Singapore, and Croatia, none of which are on my list of must-haves, but I might as well get them out of the way. I also started a sweep through Western Civilization. The history is pretty much under control, and developing sociology requires that I look at nations and peoples that are connected to it. I overdid it a bit, and Now need to slow down and collect some of these nations into regions. Anglic peoples have a reasonably solid backbone of history, and so does the UK, and from Classical and medieval times on, London gets connected as well. I began a sweep through history of Latin peoples, and except for the missing Portugal, that's in reasonably good order. I went through Italian peoples as well, but now I need to stop and look more closely at the prehistory of Italy, which as I recall, was rather sparse the last time I looked at it. That's where I'll pick up again.

Shifting again

After about a week when I doing more surfing of the web, and visiting sites repeatedly to see if there was anything new, I decided that the follow-the links approach was really going too slow, and it was boring and not very exciting. One of the things I do in such times is to take a few notes on what it is that I want to do.
I'm a great fan of the grand, sweeping overview, the thrilling possibilities of new connections just barely seen. I live for the moments when I can see how everything connects, fits together, and make sense.
And then comes the mundane reality when I try to put this vision into words and links, and then is where the gaps, and the missing pieces, and I haven't got to that part yet, and so forth starts to intrude. So I go back into the trenches to fill in the gaps and make the links work.

So, where I am right now. It ought to be well established that history requires that I work with the various peoples of the world, and so far, that means nations. So, one part of what I'm doing needs to extend the nations. Have I ever mentioned that I dislike alphabetical order? Sometimes it is the best way of looking things up, but other times, it isn't. I do have over 100 different nations on the list, but some of the smaller-but-important ones, like Greece or Israel or Ireland, tend to get pushed way down that list, and I haven't got there yet. And I don't like to just go adding nations. Most of my areas have huge backlog of nations I don't have connected yet. So, before I go adding new ones, I need to finish categorizing the ones I have.

But, when I've just distributed a dozen or so of them to the four major groups of peoples, I create a bit of "I'll get to it later". I went through the sociology-applied to history page and got Western Civilization straightened out. Goody. But now it's later for Asiatic peoples, and once I've done it to history, I need to go out to each of its subdivisions, create links to nations and parcel them out among peoples. So the grand sweeping world vision has a couple of chairs in the path of the broom.

I tend to go back and forth on History, whether I want to start from the beginning and go forward, or start from the present and work back. Sometimes I do one, sometimes the other, and sometimes I do both at the same time. How's that for being mixed up? This time, I've decided to go for the beginning to forward, and see how that goes for a while. Fine, but because I've been working on the later parts of history, the first section, Prehistory, doesn't have a complete list of nations and they aren't distributed to the proper peoples.

Western Civilization in Prehistory doesn't have a full set of links, because Greece and Sweden are so far down the list in terms of their modern population that they haven't prompted a creation of Balkan peoples or Scandinavian peoples, and you can't do Western Civilization properly at any time before about 1400 without mentioning Greece. Fine. I'll add to nations. In the meantime, I need to straighten out what I do have for Prehistory. But...wait, I can't just pile on nations for Prehistory, because that a bigger pile up of Asiatic nations waiting to be distributed than there was for History in general. Which is fine, because Asia was more important than Europe was in Prehistoric times anyway. But I still have to stop and do the sorting, which goes along with my having to do it.

But this is really just too broad to be really meaningful. I need to break down prehistory itself and work on its subdivisions, which starts the whole thing over in with early Prehistory. Oh, I can't forget about the connections with modern history, because a great deal of what we know about prehistory came from studies that were done in the 19th century and 20th century, so I can't intelligently talk about who said what (such as where do these technical terms like upper paleolithic come from and what do they mean), without more than the bare-bones outline of the 19th century I have now..but I haven't got that far in my study of history yet. In the mean time, I'm going through Western Civilization (which is dreadfully incomplete as it is, because I have fewer nations to work with) and I find that that part isn't sorted out the way it is for the broader categories...As in, I still have to create links to particular nations like Spain, and I can't say much about it anyway because I've never looked in any depth at Spanish prehistory, except for maybe something about cave paintings which date to middle Prehistory anyway, and that needs to be approached from Spain anyway, which is primarily classified in a whole different section from history, so I need to straighten that all up. Except when I go to add Spain, (and shouldn't I include Portugal along with Spain, Italy, and France? Wait, that's way down on the list of nations too), It should properly go in a Hispanic nations category...never mind that Spain is a modern nation and didn't exist as such until after the collapse of the Roman empire, but the classifications of the Hispanic nations weren't needed until after the Spanish Conquest following Columbus. so Hispanic and Spain are, for this period, practically the same, so there's some duplication...
And now I get to go through similar stuff for Middle Prehistory, and Antiquity (yep, all four and a half Millennia of it), and I haven't even started in Classical and medieval times, where things get interesting, or modern times, where they get even more complications.
And besides that, Early prehistory covers a huge time span, and I'm not doing it any justice by not subdividing it. except that's so far down the list of things that eventually need to be subdivided that I'm not even going to think about it this year.

I consider that I'm doing well to finally have a review of Anglic peoples, and British Isles that mentioned each of the four major historical periods and their second order subdivisions.

And this is just one day's sample. So why do I go through all the hassle of trying to set up and sort out tangles like this? Well, It's like I said, I have this grand, sweeping vision that, when I stop to review it, gets me out of bed in the morning...

And more progress

In the past week, I've been reviewing links from history in general to government and economics. There hasn't been much progress in prehistory or antiquity, but classical and medieval history has prompted a few more development within Western Civilization. For Modern history, I have finished up a round of looking at institutions, and gone well into areas of culture. The 18th century reached the end of a short cycle and began a longer one. The 19th century has also begun a new cycle, and the 20th century still a longer one. These will soon be prompting more developments in nations and peoples of the world.

Sociology has been in some demand, which has prompted the examination of links in economics, education, families, and behavioral culture. Peoples of the world have been somewhat less demanded, but have gone through social structure and change and into religion. Particular nations have been making connections to groups of Latin American peoples. Western Civilization has been going through reviews of history, and most of the groups within it have been touched. Asiatic peoples also have had a brief review of modern history, and several groups within it have been lightly considered. Communities have moved into consideration of institutions, and several areas within social structure and change have been lightly considered.

Institutions in general have been in considerable demand, and prompted a pass through history. Religion in has focused on Western civilization and Asiatic peoples, and most of the subtopics have been touched. Government has been considering connections to religion, and most of its subdivisions have been touched. Economics has begun to expand references to particular corporations, education has begun to include references to particular schools, and families have been lightly touched.

Culture has been lightly considered, compared to the other major topics, and the references have been to Western and Asiatic peoples. Most of the topics with it have been lightly considered. There has been little demand for Anthropology, or personal studies. Science reached the end of a cycle and began a new one.

More progress

I meant to do something closer to a daily update of my prograss, but that hasn't been working.
History has been moving fairly rapidly; I reviewed connections to social structure and change, religion, and am at present looking through government. Prehistory, antiquity, classical and medieval history including the late medieval period, modern history including the 20th century, and the future have each had a little work done in them, but a great deal.

Sociology has prompted prog progress in government and parts of economics, but hasn't been going as fast as it was earlier. More progress has come in specific peoples, where I have been working through history and into connections with social structure and change. I have also finished a cucle of development of Western Civilization and begun another. Anglic and Latin peoples and Asiatic peoples have had some development. There has been a little progress with communities, and Social structure and change also finished a cycle, and I started another.

Istitutions in general have been referred to often enough to finish a major cycle of development and begin another. Religion has had a little development, and I inverted several pages and added them to the development program; Orthodoxy, Buddhism, and Taoism. Government has had a little development, and Diplomacy, heads of state, and executive systems have been brought into the program. Economic networks and Wal-Mart have also been included.

There was comparatively little development in Anthropology or in personal studies, except for bringing in social structure and change. Physical geography, Solar System astronomy, Chemistry, and physics have been inverted and added to the program, which means that all the second-order subdivisions have development in place.

Over a dozen areas are hanging on the edge of finishing a cycle so a new one can begin.

More progress

The history section started moving again. Calls to areas of social changes produced two mew pages, on cultural innovation and institutional change in society. I also reviewed three of the major types of society. Prehistory has been calling on areas of anthropology, and is getting close to the start of another cycle. Classical and medieval history is just beginning another cycle with connections to other history. In modern history, I have been reviewing connections to government, and I'm now beginning to review connections to economics. The 16th, 17th, and 18th century have been touched. For the 19th century, I have been reviewing connections to anthropology. This is a approaching a review, also. The 20th century is progressing through culture at an introductory level. the late-mid 20th century, late 20th century, and early 21st century have only been touched.

Sociology in general has continued moving through particular governments. Peoples have been in even greater demand, and I have gone almost entirely through modern history, which accounts for much of the development of that subject. For nations, beginning a new cycle meant that I incorporated a number of nations in the alphabetical order, and copied my list of nations in order of population into the document I use for the development plan, for future reference. I've been adhering to that list a little too strictly, and I want to focus more on peoples. Western Civilization and the United Kingdom were only touched, and communities likewise. Several areas within social structure and change were lightly touched also.

Institutions in general have been connected to material culture and the beginnings of anthropology, and will be up for a review before too much longer. I have somewhat rethought the priorities on investigation of material culture, but those will be adjusted in the next round of development. Religion was only barely touched. There has been somewhat more focus on particular governments. Colonial empires came to the end of a cycle, which has been restarted, and World Government has also begun a new cycle. The UN has been brought into the development program. A couple of areas of economics, and families have been touched.

Culture in general was only lightly touched. Behavioral culture was connected to areas of anthropology, and should be up for a review before long. A couple of areas of conceptual culture, and several areas of material culture were touched lightly.

Anthropology finished a review of how institutions apply, and began one of culture. Particular groups are also approaching a review, and Human geography was referred to often enough to go through its links with history and start sociology. Human ecology was only touched.

Personal studies were also only touched, and there were no references to science at all, in today's development. With the number of areas approaching a new-cycle review, both of these should be getting more attention soon.

Latest progress

History in general is not demanded nearly so much as it was a couple of weeks ago: the principal focus has shifted, as it properly should, to particular periods of history. Processes of change haven't been developed enough to be very useful to history this time around. There has been minor advance in middle prehistory For antiquity, there are rather few communities that date to this period. Analysis using social structure and change is rather superficial at this point. The 3rd, 2nd, and early first millennia have each had connections to various peoples to review. Classical and medieval history reached the end of a cycle, and I have a new program outlined for it. The late medieval period also reached the end of a cycle, and I have started a new cycle of examining its aids. Modern history and its subdivisions haven't been heavily demanded.

There is a continuing push for examination of sociology, I have progressed from examining religion, and begun examining government. There has also been a demand for peoples of the world, which has been pushing history, so I may be doing more with modern history in the next day or few. For nations, I reached the end of a cycle, but haven't yet begun a new one. There has been only a little work in Western Civilization, and none in any other peoples since the last post. Communities reached the end of a cycle and I have begun a new one, with some exploration of history. Social structure and change has been barely touched. Social change processes are early in a development cycle. Antiquity is a very broad area to attempt to apply to this.

There has also been progress in examining the institutions: I finished a pass through how conceptual culture applies to them. Religion is in a historical review, but there is not a lot of detail to add. Religious organization, practice, and belief have been touched, mostly by request from sociology. Government has also been rather lightly touched, and so have economics and education.

Within culture, I am reviewing connections to Western Civilization, and there has been some limited progress in behavioral, conceptual, and material culture, which has been reviewed as projected in the last post. Anthropology, personal studies, and science have all been touched, but there hasn't been substantial work in them.

More notes

As well as surrendering voluntary control, I've also given up on complete predictability.
I've been going though Asiatic peoples in support of history in general. I've finished this cycle's consideration of history in support of sociology, and I am now looking at the institutions. I finished a cycle of aids for peoples of the world and begun a new one, so this will give my more support of history. Institutions in general are now being considered by using culture. Particular governments have finished a cycle of development and I have begun another. Culture in general is finished with the historical review for this cycle, and I am looking at sociology. Anthropology is working through institutions. The personal studies section has finished a review of aids, and I have begun another cycle, starting as usual with history.

Abrahamic religion, secularism, schools, material culture, and biography are on the edge of requiring new reviews using other aids. Others are fairly close, but not quite as close as these. However, a surge of demand may move one of them into being considered first.

Voluntary control

I realized when I woke up this morning that, with the demand-driven development program, I have more or less surrendered direct voluntary control of where the knowledge base is going. Instead, the selection of which topics to develop next, and how fast, is being driven by the internal logic and collective needs of the various subjects. I have some control over that internal logic when I complete a cycle of development for the aids to a given subject, and outline a new cycle selecting which topics to develop or add the next time around. So far, I'm still doing a lot of inverting the order of topics being considered, with only a sprinkling of new links or pages.

History in general has not been moving as fast as it was: except with nations that are being newly reconsidered at this point in the cycle, there hasn't been much demand for it. However, classical and medieval history and modern history have been demanded more heavily. Prehistory is about in the middle of a cycle, Antiquity near the beginning of one, classical and medieval history near the end of one, and modern history near the beginning of one, with development in the near future to be focused on the Institutions. The 20th century and studies of the future are about in the middle of their development cycles.

Sociology in general is using history, now up to modern history, as its principal aid, and is still fairly heavily demanded. Peoples of the world are not quite as much demanded, but are approaching the end of a cycle. Although I haven't been demanding nations very heavily, I am somewhat surprised to see how slowly they are actually going. Western Civilization is about in the middle of a development cycle, and Asiatic peoples at the beginning of one, with African and American Indian peoples in the early parts of short, slow moving cycles. Communities are approaching the end of one development cycle, and the beginning of a new one, and social structure and change a little bit ahead of them.

Institutions have been moderately demanded, and are now finishing with a review of social structure and change, and are about to go through a review of how culture applies. I have just begin a new cycle for Religion, government is in the early stages of one, at history, and Economics has just begun once. Education and family are in the middle of shorter, slower moving cycles.

Culture is at the beginning of large cycle of development, at present focused on history. The major areas of behavioral culture and conceptual culture are in the middle of development cycles. Material culture is at the end of one, about to start a new one.

Anthropology in general is in the middle of a comparatively short and slow moving cycle. Particular groups haven't been heavily demanded, but human geography has been in fairly strong demand. Personal studies have been moving very slowly, but I am almost at the end of a development cycle, about to begin a new one. Biography is also close to a new development cycle. Science hasn't been called for much and is moving slowly, about in the middle of a new cycle.

For a few noteworthy developments, I have put a couple of specific biographies in the cycle for development of religion, although it may be a while before I get to them. For some time, I have been rather irritated that my development plans couldn't get to the connections between economics and material culture, but these are now (or soon will be) better established. I continue.