This page was first created on August 10, 2000.

The following links provide entry points to the various topic-related notes that I have created as a result of the reading that I have done.

• Ancient Greece
• Modern Literature
• Japan
• Internet
• History
• Psychology

However it is also possible to imagine these categories within a larger framework, which I might call Earth History, which obviously is a subset of the History of the Universe. There is something almost pathetic about the idea that a single life form on a small planet at the edge of a small galaxy could provide such a History. Still, at least for the moment, that is all we have. There is something almost heroic about the idea as well.

The scales for describing the history of the universe are themselves fascinating, requiring unimaginable shifts from the very small to the very large, an encompassing the very early, the present, and the very distant.

As we move toward a local history of the planet Earth, almost all of the history is geology and uses a timescale of geologic time.

At the very end of the geologic time scale we enter the realm of human prehistory and then at the last instant, human history.

One way to organize human history is by geographic region. Thus, using the continents as convenient groups we have:

• North America
• Europe
• Asia
• Africa
• South America
• Australia

Within each conitinent there may be a series of natural categories for segmenting the time scale under consideration. For example, a euro-centric perspective of North American history might use the categories:

• before 1500
• 1500 - 1600
• 1600 - 1700
• 1700 - 1800
• 1800 - 1900
• 1900 - 2000

The era before 1500 might be further sub-divided by major civilizations and thus include

• Aztec
• Mayan
• Inca
• West Coast native
• Central Plains native
• East Coast native
• Inuit

Within European history (including the Mediterranean) we might consider early civilizations such as:

• Fertile Crescent
• Egypt
• Ancient Greece
• Roman Empire

This may then be followed by

• the Dark Ages
• the Middle Ages
• the Modern Era

At any point one may zoom in for a closer look. For me, it is helpful to first have a sense of the big picture, so in zooming I still have a sense of perspective and context.

In my particular case, one such area for a closer examination is that of Ancient Greece.

Another is to focus on a history of Asia, and to do this by initially concentrating on Japan and China.

My remaining topics of the Internet, Psychology and Modern Literature are all topics with a very modern timeframe, usually within the last 50 years. I would like to add Science and Mathematics to the list, but that will have to wait for a bit as I organize my thoughts on the preceding topics.