Great turning points in world history: farming, writing, printing, industry

Why group them as turning points

World history contains so many events that following them all from the start is a good way to get lost. A useful method is to set up a few points that fundamentally changed how people lived and then place other events between them. This guide uses the start of farming, the invention of writing, the spread of printing and the Industrial Revolution as those reference points. All four changed how people obtained food, how they recorded and shared information, or how they used energy. Of course, this is not the only correct way to divide history.

The start of farming

For hundreds of thousands of years people lived by hunting and gathering. About 10,000 years ago, in the so-called Fertile Crescent of West Asia, people began growing wheat and barley and domesticating animals, and farming also began independently, with different crops, in several other regions including China and the Americas. Farming produced settled life and villages, and surplus food led to population growth, specialised occupations and social hierarchy. Some research also suggests that working hours grew and people became more vulnerable to famine and disease, so it should not be seen as simple progress.

The invention of writing

Around 3200 BCE, cuneiform pressed into clay tablets appeared in Mesopotamia, and Egyptian hieroglyphs emerged at about the same time. In China, oracle bone inscriptions survive from the late Shang dynasty. Interestingly, many early texts were not poems or histories but accounting and administrative records of grain and livestock. Writing let states record taxes and laws, and knowledge that had depended on memory began to pass between people and generations. Writing is also the line that separates history from prehistory.

The spread of paper and printing

Paper, developed in China, spread through East Asia to the Islamic world and Europe. In East Asia woodblock printing came into wide use first, and there are records that Bi Sheng of Song China used movable type made of clay in the eleventh century. In Goryeo, Jikji was printed with metal movable type in 1377. In Europe, Gutenberg made metal-type printing practical in the mid-fifteenth century; print shops multiplied, books became cheaper and the same text reached many people at once. The common assessment is that this strongly influenced the Reformation and the spread of scientific knowledge.

The Industrial Revolution

In late eighteenth-century Britain, production based on machines and factories began to take hold. Mechanisation advanced quickly in cotton textiles, and the steam engine improved by James Watt shifted production from the muscle of people and animals and the power of water to coal. In 1825 a public railway hauled by steam locomotives opened in England, and the movement of goods and people sped up dramatically. Populations crowded into cities and output soared, but long working hours, child labour, poor housing and pollution appeared alongside.

Patterns shared by all four

Placed side by side, the four turning points share several features. First, none happened overnight; each spread over decades or millennia. Second, rather than one person's invention, many improvements and social conditions came together. Third, benefits and costs were not shared evenly, so some groups gained and others lost. Fourth, the gaps between turning points grew shorter. Thousands of years separate farming from writing, but only about 300 years separate the spread of printing from the Industrial Revolution.

Common misconceptions

Turning points invite dramatic stories. It is best to avoid simplifications like these.

• One genius's invention changed the world
• It started in one place and spread everywhere in the same way
• The new way was immediately good for everyone
• Whoever invented it first always made the most of it

How to study them

Mark the four turning points on a long strip of paper and draw their distance from today to scale. You will see at a glance how close printing and industrialisation are to the present compared with the gap between farming and writing. Then lay a Korean history timeline along the same axis, and simultaneities between regions appear, such as Jikji and Gutenberg's printing being less than a century apart. When comparing, asking how each society used and spread a technology teaches far more than asking which side was superior.