Universal history (genre)

A universal history is a work aiming at the presentation of a history of all of humankind as a whole. Universal historians try to identify connections and patterns among individual historical events and phenomena, making them part of a general narrative. A universal chronicle or world chronicle typically traces history from the beginning of written information about the past up to the present. Therefore, any work classed as such purportedly attempts to embrace the events of all times and nations insofar as scientific treatment of them is possible.

Siegfried of Ballhausen was the first to use the title Historia universalis (universal history) in 1304.

A project of Universal history may be seen in the Hebrew Bible,^{[citation needed]} which from the point of view of its redactors^{[citation needed]} in the 5th century BC presents a history of humankind from creation to the Flood, and from there a history of the Israelites down to the present. The Seder Olam is a 2nd-century CE rabbinic interpretation of this chronology.^{[citation needed]}

In Greco-Roman antiquity, the first universal history was written by Ephorus (405–330 BCE). This work has been lost, but its influence can be seen in the ambitions of Polybius (203–120 BC) and Diodorus (fl. 1st century BC) to give comprehensive accounts of their worlds. Herodotus' History is the earliest surviving member of the Greco-Roman world-historical tradition, although under some definitions of universal history it does not qualify as universal because it reflects no attempt to describe an overall direction of history or a principle or set of principles governing or underlying it. Polybius was the first to attempt a universal history in this stricter sense of the term:

For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this: Fortune has gained almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced to incline towards one and the same end; a historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptic view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose (1:4:1-11).

Metamorphoses by Ovid has been considered as a universal history because of its comprehensive chronology—from the creation of humankind to the death of Julius Caesar a year before the poet's birth. In Leipzig are preserved five fragments dating to the 2nd century AD and coming from a world chronicle. Its author is unknown, but was perhaps a Christian. Later, universal history provided an influential lens on the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire in such works as Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, Augustine's City of God, and Orosius' History Against the Pagans.^{[citation needed]}

During the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) of China, Sima Qian (145–86 BC) was the first Chinese historian to attempt a universal history—from the earliest mythological origins of his civilization to his present day—in his Records of the Grand Historian. Although his generation was the first in China to discover the existence of kingdoms in Central Asia and India, his work did not attempt to cover the history of these regions.^{[citation needed]}

The 11th-century Zizhi Tongjian of Sima Guang is sometimes considered the first of the chronologically arranged universal histories produced in China.