This Site

In addition to heroics and technological change, world history should tell of the clashes of interest and small-mindedness that have driven it, along with the cultural diffusions that have been a part of it. History should be more than a devotional ethnic or nationalistic storytelling. As much as possible it should be a truth-telling.

Macrohistory is used on this site in the sense of "the big picture" or any work broader than microhistory. Let's not consider "meso-history." This site describes interconnections that are not analogous and prefers a collection of specifics over generalized explanations.

The original author of this site, Frank Smitha, believed that a study of history such as this is a collective endeavor. It should draw from the works of professional archeologists and the work of professional historians who have dedicated their lives to a particular field of study.

Smitha did not pretend a lofty unattached objectivity, but his narratives did attempt clarity and fairness. His aims were to describe rather than to preach. He preferred to leave readers space for their choice in moralizing.

This site was sold in June 2015 to Scott Jones who runs educational websites across a range of subjects. The site has been online since 1997. Here are sections beyond the site's narratives:

World History Timeline covers events from 4.3 million years ago to the present month. Here and there opinion is involved in the selection of items, but we try to keep opinion down.

Opinions are listed in a section that separates them from narratives.

Book Summaries are written to provide historical information.

Movies and History describes only eight films.

Macrohistories describe the work of a couple dozen macrohistorians and does not include works published in recent years.

Smitha's biography

In Korea in 1952 at age eighteen, Smitha, a highschool dropout and son of an automobile mechanic, was jolted into taking an interest in what was happening in the world. Leaving the Marine Corps in 1954, he attended Glendale Community College, travelled, attended UCLA in 1963-64. From there he went to UC Berkeley where he sat in on classes, worked for the university as a copyist, sat in on classes, attended lecutures by visiting scholars, did research using campus libraries, wrote independently and continued a political activism that had begun in 1961. His PhD wife insisted that he get a degree, and this resulted in a BA with honors in History from California State University, East Bay. An instructor there who had a PhD from Stanford did what he could to have a scholarship Smitha by Stanford. That didn't work out and, needing to make a living, Smitha went to work as a writer-editor in Silicon Valley. In the 1990s he returned to writing history. Smitha now lives in Ohio.

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