A World of Empire

The video above is the second lecture by Prof. Timothy Snyder from his lectures on Hitler and Stalin Today. The second lecture (above) takes a flyover view of history from the Roman Empire to the Present. The ten lecture series is available on YouTube at Timothy Synder: Hitler and Stalin Today.

Essentially, the lecture covers the period for which I have data and models (-20,000BCE - Present). In Prof. Synder's Video lecture (above) a few different points about the period are made.

Notes

BCE

• Mesopotamia (3500-3000 BCE) an historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.
  
  
  
  
  
• Hunter-Gatherers (20,000-12,000 BCE) a human living in a community (or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle) in which most or all food is obtained by procuring naturally occurring edible items from the local wildlife and vegetation via hunting, fishing and/or gathering fruits, seeds and other plant parts (collectively known as vegetables) as well as edible fungi such as mushrooms.
• Last Glacial Period (115,000–11,700) also known as the last glacial cycle, occurred from the end of the Last Interglacial to the beginning of the Holocene, from around 115,000–11,700 years ago, and thus corresponds to most of the timespan of the Late Pleistocene.It thus formed the most recent period of what is colloquially known as the "Ice Age".
• Neolithic Revolution (10,000-6,000 BCE) the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible.
• Roman Warm Period (250BCE-400AD) a period of unusually-warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic.
• Roman Empire (27BCE-1453AD) a state that dominated the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa during the classical period. 

AD

My periodization is somewhat different from Prof. Synder's and was based more on periods over which I wanted to estimate models, considerations from World-Systems Theory and consulting Wikipedia:

• World-System (0-500) The Roman Empire Environmental and Malthusian controllers dominate the models. 
• Early Middle Ages (500-1000) The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the High Middle Ages (c. 11th to 14th centuries).
• Feudalism (800-1400) Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of various customs and systems that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
• Late Middle Ages (1300-1450) The Late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded Early modern Europe (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance).
• The Long 16th Century (1460-1540) On the World History Timeline (above), it covered the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. The Takeoff associated with GDP in the Industrial Revolution was in the future.
• The Long Seventeenth Century (1640-1815) is the period that includes the French Revolution (1789) and the aftermath. In another blog (here), I cover the Long Sixteenth Century (1450-1640) that covers the age of Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation. And, the period from the French Revolution  to World War I.
• The Long Eighteenth Century (1688-1815) The long 18th century is a phrase used by many British historians to cover a more natural historical period than the simple use of the standard calendar definition of the eighteenth century (1 January 1701 to 31 December 1800).
• The Long Nineteenth Century (1789-1914)  a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
• World-System (1900-1950) World in Depression In a book by Charles Kindleberger World in Depression (1929-1939), Kindleberger argues that (1) Financial markets are prone to contagion (Economic Bubbles), (2) the bubbles spread across countries and (3) Hegemonic leadership is important to stabilizing these dynamics. Markets pass through cycles of boom, crash, panic, repulsion and finally depression (sometimes called the Minsky-Kindleberger model).
• The Long Twentieth Century (1900-2000+) The phrase "the long twentieth century" refers to a period spanning roughly from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, characterized by profound transformations in global politics, economics, society, and technology.
• The World-System (0-2000) In case I missed anything.