Book contents
- The Cambridge World HistoryVolume IV
- The Cambridge World History
- A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 bce–900 ce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the world from 1200 bce to 900 ce
- Part I Global histories
- 2 Global economic history
- 3 The gendering of power in the family and the state
- 4 Slavery
- 5 The Axial Age in world history
- 6 Developments in science and technology c. 800 bce – c. 800 ce
- 7 Discourses on gender and sexuality
- 8 Art
- 9 Pastoral nomads
- Part II Trans-regional and regional perspectives
- Index
- References
5 - The Axial Age in world history
from Part I - Global histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge World HistoryVolume IV
- The Cambridge World History
- A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 bce–900 ce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the world from 1200 bce to 900 ce
- Part I Global histories
- 2 Global economic history
- 3 The gendering of power in the family and the state
- 4 Slavery
- 5 The Axial Age in world history
- 6 Developments in science and technology c. 800 bce – c. 800 ce
- 7 Discourses on gender and sexuality
- 8 Art
- 9 Pastoral nomads
- Part II Trans-regional and regional perspectives
- Index
- References
Summary
In the course of the last half-century the interpretation of the first millennium BCE has come to occupy a prominent position not only in the fields of history and the history of religion but, increasingly, also in the humanities and social sciences more generally. One focal point in this development is the growing interest in the idea of the so-called Axial Age. The authors of conceptual historical essays on the Axial Age, Johann P. Arnason and Hans Joas, have somewhat different assessments of the relevance of these references. In all areas where the new openness of thought characteristic of the Axial Age emerged, there were multiple competing conceptualizations and a variety of different schools of thought. Inspired by the evolutionary and cognitive perspective of Merlin Donald, Bellah emphasizes that the Axial Age is expressive of the possibilities that opened up to humankind at the time of the emergence of a fourth evolutionary stage in the development of human culture.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History , pp. 101 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015
References
Further Reading
Arnason, Johann P., Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., and Wittrock, Björn (eds.), Axial Civilizations and World History, Leiden: Brill, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellah, Robert N., Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, Cambridge, ma: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert N., ”What Is Axial about the Axial Age?” European Journal of Sociology 46 (2005): 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellah, Robert N., and Joas, Hans (eds.), The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Cambridge, ma: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen [The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms], New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Donald, Merlin, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition, Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. (ed.), Kulturen der Achsenzeit I: Ihre Ursprünge und ihre Vielfalt, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987, parts 1 and 2.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. Kulturen der Achsenzeit II: Ihre institutionelle und kulturelle Dynamik, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992, part 1.Google Scholar
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Morris, Ian, Why the West Rules – for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future, New York: Picador, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010.Google Scholar
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Pines, Yuri, Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era, Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Pines, Yuri, Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqui Period, 722–453 bce, Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
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Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age, Cambridge, ma: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
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