When did the Middle Ages end in Europe?

[dead0man]

It seems to me it would make sense for "ages" to get shorter, the closer you get to the present.


But I don't have anything substantial to add, but great thread, thank you all.

[Skill and Chance]

1850. Bite me.

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch. If the same historical period includes the early barbarian Kingdoms as well as the hypersophisticated courts of 1700 and the political turmoil of 1800, it's really extended beyond utility. Even the idea that "feudalism" was the same thing in the 6th century than it was in the late Ancient Regime (let alone in the 30 years after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies steamrolled over it) seems pretty silly to me. As for Christianity, it had radically reshaped itself over this period, and I'm pretty sure even the common believer from 500 would find much in common with that of 1800.

If anything, I'd be far more interested in a periodization that "breaks up" the Middle Ages into more coherent pieces of 2-3 centuries each (for example, the Dark Ages up to Charlemagne, the transition into strong feudalism up to the First Crusade, the Golden Age up until the Great Famine, and the Crisis up until 1453). This is how we usually periodize the modern era, so I think it's a lot more helpful in terms of understanding what happened in the Middle Ages. History might have been "slower" back then, but it wasn't that slow.

Tbh we have the same problem in our periodization of the Classical Era. The idea that we can say anything coherent in a time that spans between the outset of Greek city-states and the fall of Rome is pretty surreal. But at least it's kept at around 1000 years total, which should be the absolute maximum for a historical cycle.

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

If you were to look at the most fundamental distinctions between average life in the indisputably modern era and, say, the 13th century, the broadest possible measure, the things a time traveler would notice first and be most struck by, you would say the modern era has these things:

- light/power as a mass utility, & other utilities
- powered (vs animal) transportation, whether by land, air or sea
- instant long distance communication
- the production of images/screens

and to a lesser degree:
- artificial computing (although less noticeable in everyday life)

The average time traveler would not notice that Constantinople had fallen, certainly not before any of the things I mentioned, and certainly would not consider that fact to be more definitive of the differences between their time and ours.

These all point to the mid 19th century.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

1850. Bite me.

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch. If the same historical period includes the early barbarian Kingdoms as well as the hypersophisticated courts of 1700 and the political turmoil of 1800, it's really extended beyond utility. Even the idea that "feudalism" was the same thing in the 6th century than it was in the late Ancient Regime (let alone in the 30 years after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies steamrolled over it) seems pretty silly to me. As for Christianity, it had radically reshaped itself over this period, and I'm pretty sure even the common believer from 500 would find much in common with that of 1800.

If anything, I'd be far more interested in a periodization that "breaks up" the Middle Ages into more coherent pieces of 2-3 centuries each (for example, the Dark Ages up to Charlemagne, the transition into strong feudalism up to the First Crusade, the Golden Age up until the Great Famine, and the Crisis up until 1453). This is how we usually periodize the modern era, so I think it's a lot more helpful in terms of understanding what happened in the Middle Ages. History might have been "slower" back then, but it wasn't that slow.

Tbh we have the same problem in our periodization of the Classical Era. The idea that we can say anything coherent in a time that spans between the outset of Greek city-states and the fall of Rome is pretty surreal. But at least it's kept at around 1000 years total, which should be the absolute maximum for a historical cycle.

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

If you were to look at the most fundamental distinctions between average life in the indisputably modern era and, say, the 13th century, the broadest possible measure, the things a time traveler would notice first and be most struck by, you would say the modern era has these things:

- light/power as a mass utility, & other utilities
- powered (vs animal) transportation, whether by land, air or sea
- instant long distance communication
- the production of images/screens

and to a lesser degree:
- artificial computing (although less noticeable in everyday life)

The average time traveler would not notice that Constantinople had fallen, certainly not before any of the things I mentioned, and certainly would not consider that fact to be more definitive of the differences between their time and ours.

These all point to the mid 19th century.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

Maybe not crazy, but it's certainly odd given that racialized chattel slavery (and hence also its legacy) is of Early Modern vintage. It seems to me that, for the Middle Ages in Mississippi to have ended in the 1960s, they would have had to have begun in the last few decades of the nineteenth century, when the ersatz-feudal institution of sharecropping was first substituted for the old "peculiar institution".

This is also just ignoring all the things that a time traveler from the sixth or seventh century to the thirteenth would have noticed, such as heavy plows, sailing ships, and large agricultural surpluses. All of these are things that, while we don't think about them much today, would have been extremely important differences to somebody from a primarily non-urban society.

[Skill and Chance]

1850. Bite me.

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch. If the same historical period includes the early barbarian Kingdoms as well as the hypersophisticated courts of 1700 and the political turmoil of 1800, it's really extended beyond utility. Even the idea that "feudalism" was the same thing in the 6th century than it was in the late Ancient Regime (let alone in the 30 years after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies steamrolled over it) seems pretty silly to me. As for Christianity, it had radically reshaped itself over this period, and I'm pretty sure even the common believer from 500 would find much in common with that of 1800.

If anything, I'd be far more interested in a periodization that "breaks up" the Middle Ages into more coherent pieces of 2-3 centuries each (for example, the Dark Ages up to Charlemagne, the transition into strong feudalism up to the First Crusade, the Golden Age up until the Great Famine, and the Crisis up until 1453). This is how we usually periodize the modern era, so I think it's a lot more helpful in terms of understanding what happened in the Middle Ages. History might have been "slower" back then, but it wasn't that slow.

Tbh we have the same problem in our periodization of the Classical Era. The idea that we can say anything coherent in a time that spans between the outset of Greek city-states and the fall of Rome is pretty surreal. But at least it's kept at around 1000 years total, which should be the absolute maximum for a historical cycle.

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

If you were to look at the most fundamental distinctions between average life in the indisputably modern era and, say, the 13th century, the broadest possible measure, the things a time traveler would notice first and be most struck by, you would say the modern era has these things:

- light/power as a mass utility, & other utilities
- powered (vs animal) transportation, whether by land, air or sea
- instant long distance communication
- the production of images/screens

and to a lesser degree:
- artificial computing (although less noticeable in everyday life)

The average time traveler would not notice that Constantinople had fallen, certainly not before any of the things I mentioned, and certainly would not consider that fact to be more definitive of the differences between their time and ours.

These all point to the mid 19th century.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

Maybe not crazy, but it's certainly odd given that racialized chattel slavery (and hence also its legacy) is of Early Modern vintage. It seems to me that, for the Middle Ages in Mississippi to have ended in the 1960s, they would have had to have begun in the last few decades of the nineteenth century, when the ersatz-feudal institution of sharecropping was first substituted for the old "peculiar institution".

This is also just ignoring all the things that a time traveler from the sixth or seventh century to the thirteenth would have noticed, such as heavy plows, sailing ships, and large agricultural surpluses. All of these are things that, while we don't think about them much today, would have been extremely important differences to somebody from a primarily non-urban society.

Well, there was plenty of feudal stuff going on in the Antebellum South between all those indentured servants in 17-18th century Virginia and all of those plantation owning families claiming lineage from Charlemagne, etc. 

But on the whole, I agree with you.  Slavery was in decline throughout the Middle Ages and outright banned in most of Europe by the Black Death (my favored end of the Middle Ages event).  Something was clearly different by 1500, and even in 1000-1200, technology actually had advanced beyond the Roman era on several front.

I like the idea that Five Good Emperors era Rome, Constantine-Justinian era Byzantium, and later Medieval Europe had enough innovation that they were flirting with industrialization before getting most of that progress wiped out by plagues.  Then in modern times we developed vaccines, sterilization, and antibiotics just in time to keep the innovation and urban population growth machine going.  The literal Black Death was getting ready to spread across the world for a 3rd time circa 1900 and potentially wipe out the urbanized population again if we hadn't stopped it first.   

[Kingpoleon]

There is this thing in linguistics called a dialect continuum. Those two patterns of speech are largely the same, but become unintelligible and dissimilar, usually based upon the distance between two dialects. It’s important that we view history not as separate ages, but one long story - the greatest and truest ever told - about what came before us.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It seems to me it would make sense for "ages" to get shorter, the closer you get to the present.

Oh, definitely. Both because having more sources allows us to make finer distinctions and because despite everything, it is undeniably true that history has been moving "faster" over the past 3-4 centuries.

That said, people in this thread have taken this sort of attitude way too far. We're now at the degree of presentism where everything that feels vaguely different from now is being associated with the Middle Ages, even things that are obvious products of modernity like the colonial racial hierarchy. This is patently absurd. The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

[buritobr]

Some arbitrary line must be drawn

A person who is 21 years old is more similar to a person who is 17, than to a person who is 70, but someone who is 21 or 70 is allowed to drink alkohol, and someone who is 17 is not allowed to drink alkohol

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

No, it is completely insane. There was never a Middle Ages in the United States or anywhere else in the Americas. How on earth could there have been? The suggestion is a rank absurdity.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

A very, very dubious assertion, one that disqualifies you from being taken remotely seriously about the topic. Hollywood is really not a good source, you know.

Your juvenile attitude (and that's all it really is) does not phase me in the least.

What do you imagine life was like 'for the average person' in 550 and in 1450? And in 1950, for that matter. You do not know what you are talking about.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch.

He was a contrarian and mostly his argument has to be seen as mostly trolling (not unlike some of A.J.P. Taylor's more obviously mischievous points, though as Le Goff was an infinitely superior historian this does feel a little unfair), but there might be an element of him being a little too enmeshed in French Rural History and not quite getting that its peculiarities are... extremely peculiar.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

Another part of the problem is that the American school system in many places simply stops teaching world history after World War II, giving the impression that everything before the Good Old Days "was" history-as-such in a way that events that are more firmly within living memory aren't. Anecdotally I know somebody, a friend's father, a man in his late fifties with a master's degree who worked as a civil servant for thirty years, who's of the belief that Operation Overlord constitutes a "climax" to world history the way a novel or movie has a climax! My first post in this thread was a parody of the way lots of Americans end up thinking about world history, but not an especially broad one.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

Yeah, that might be the one thing about Americans I've had the most trouble relating to. I've been keenly aware of being part of a multi-millenary history since third grade (Our Ancestors the Gauls etc. - though of course I never bought that part for obvious reasons), and that has always been a source of wonder for me, even when modern history became my main interest. It's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone from a "young" country whose history is four centuries old at most (of course, the lands they occupy had a much older history, but that history was deliberately destroyed, so those few centuries are all that remains).

Now, stopping at 1945 as Nathan points out is an entirely self-imposed problem, and one that's becoming more and more dangerous as time goes on. I can see an argument for not teaching the last few decades, since it's genuinely hard to put much historical analysis on them, but you people are soon going to miss a full century.

[pikachu]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

Yeah, that might be the one thing about Americans I've had the most trouble relating to. I've been keenly aware of being part of a multi-millenary history since third grade (Our Ancestors the Gauls etc. - though of course I never bought that part for obvious reasons), and that has always been a source of wonder for me, even when modern history became my main interest. It's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone from a "young" country whose history is four centuries old at most (of course, the lands they occupy had a much older history, but that history was deliberately destroyed, so those few centuries are all that remains).

Now, stopping at 1945 as Nathan points out is an entirely self-imposed problem, and one that's becoming more and more dangerous as time goes on. I can see an argument for not teaching the last few decades, since it's genuinely hard to put much historical analysis on them, but you people are soon going to miss a full century.

I don't want to defend American history education, and I really don't want to defend the College Board, but I think the latter part is a bit overstated - I remember when taking my AP US and Euro tests five years ago that we had essay questions on the rise of the right from Goldwater to Reagan and the fall of communism in Poland, so it has to be covered unless you want to face the wrath of overambitious gunners.

[brucejoel99]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

Yeah, that might be the one thing about Americans I've had the most trouble relating to. I've been keenly aware of being part of a multi-millenary history since third grade (Our Ancestors the Gauls etc. - though of course I never bought that part for obvious reasons), and that has always been a source of wonder for me, even when modern history became my main interest. It's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone from a "young" country whose history is four centuries old at most (of course, the lands they occupy had a much older history, but that history was deliberately destroyed, so those few centuries are all that remains).

Now, stopping at 1945 as Nathan points out is an entirely self-imposed problem, and one that's becoming more and more dangerous as time goes on. I can see an argument for not teaching the last few decades, since it's genuinely hard to put much historical analysis on them, but you people are soon going to miss a full century.

I don't want to defend American history education, and I really don't want to defend the College Board, but I think the latter part is a bit overstated - I remember when taking my AP US and Euro tests five years ago that we had essay questions on the rise of the right from Goldwater to Reagan and the fall of overambitious gunners.

Yeah, my APUSH curriculum went all the way through to the end of the Cold War.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

David Wooton's "The Invention of Science" puts a lot of importance on the changes to the European psyche from 1492 and other voyages: the idea there was an entire landmass that all the ancients had no idea about was earthshaking to a society that assumed basically everything had already been discovered in antiquity. The idea that the world was full of new discoveries (a concept that Portuguese didn't even have a real word for at the time of Columbus), that Europe could "progress" and gaze into the future rather than merely discuss and revere the past had profound implications in the development of modernity. After all, what is modernity if it isn't the ideology of "progress"?

This is a very attractive idea, a very logical idea and it really ought to be true. The problem is that the early Spanish explorers were not in the least bit interested in anything other than gold or commercially exchangeable alternatives. There is a remarkable little section in The Loss of El Dorado in which Naipaul points out how utterly bizarre it is that the first written descriptions of the great hosts of flying fish that used to populate the Eastern Caribbean came not from those early Spanish explorers, but from English adventurers some time later.

In all fairness (I annoyingly lost the book when leaving university, so can't cite his reasoning) I think Wootton was referring to the individuals back home who realized the implications of what the explorers had found rather than the sort of mercenary who signed up to become a petty tyrant to find a magical gold city.

[Nightcore Nationalist]

I love the idea of this thread, and the idea that there should be a different answer for different parts of Europe, like 1485 for Britain, 1492 for Spain etc...

I generally considered the middle ages to end when Spanish exploration and the Colombian exchange began, which is a good broad, continent spanning definition.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe.  

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's.  

Nathan already pointed this out very well, but the idea of the middle ages ending so late in the US is pretty puzzling.  Most of the society defining traits of the Colonies/U.S are products of a post-middle ages world in Europe.  Although the tidewater colonies used indentured servitude initially (both Europeans and Africans), after a few decades that was phased out in favor of chattel slavery which, according to Colin Woodward-was imported from the British Caribbean colony of Barbados.  Plus, you have the transition from a Mercantile economy to a Capitalist one and the aristocracy/rigid class system that Europe had (and waned over the 18th and 19th) was nonexistent in the North and frontier, of course the deep south/tidewater had a de-facto aristocracy all it's own.

Basically greater European society was altered permanently when colonization and the Colombian exchange ramped up in the early-mid 16th century.  The U.S. never really resembled pre-1500 Europe.  And everything Nathan and Antonio V said about the rapid changes a time-traveler would notice.

[RINO Tom]

Far from a detailed analysis, but I have always liked more or less equating the Middle Ages with the life of the “Byzantine Empire” - from 476 AD to 1453 AD, with the “early Middle Ages” being “the Dark Ages” ... not sure where I’d bracket that range.

[Beet]

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

A very, very dubious assertion, one that disqualifies you from being taken remotely seriously about the topic. Hollywood is really not a good source, you know.

Your juvenile attitude (and that's all it really is) does not phase me in the least.

What do you imagine life was like 'for the average person' in 550 and in 1450? And in 1950, for that matter. You do not know what you are talking about.

Geographically limited, illiterate and rural. Which was not true in 1950, at least in the West. What great difference can you put down between 550 and 1450 that is greater than that?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Middle Ages aren't "everything that feels old-timey to us 21st century people", they have to be defined by their own inner logic and not in opposition to our present time.

The issue here is that Americans are sundered from the Middle Ages and what it wrought in ways that Europeans are not. It has no real existence in the American imagination other than 'the olden days when there were knights and castles'. As far as most Americans are concerned, Chaucer, Hildegard von Bingen and the Catalan Company are no more real than Robin Hood. Whereas I (for instance) am surrounded by the period's extremely visible legacy; by the ruins of castles and abbeys, by still-extant churches and cathedrals, by woods, boundary-ditches, hedges and fields that the people of the time knew as well as I do, and even by the continuing impact of administrative boundaries first idly sketched out during the period. And one way or another, this is true of everyone else in this continent. The period is part of our living past; it almost feels as if one can reach out and touch it, and in a way, of course, one can. The result is a fundamental divergence in perspective, amongst other things. There is a reason why academic Mediaevalism in North America is such a poisonous pit of stupidity.

Yeah, that might be the one thing about Americans I've had the most trouble relating to. I've been keenly aware of being part of a multi-millenary history since third grade (Our Ancestors the Gauls etc. - though of course I never bought that part for obvious reasons), and that has always been a source of wonder for me, even when modern history became my main interest. It's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone from a "young" country whose history is four centuries old at most (of course, the lands they occupy had a much older history, but that history was deliberately destroyed, so those few centuries are all that remains).

Now, stopping at 1945 as Nathan points out is an entirely self-imposed problem, and one that's becoming more and more dangerous as time goes on. I can see an argument for not teaching the last few decades, since it's genuinely hard to put much historical analysis on them, but you people are soon going to miss a full century.

I don't want to defend American history education, and I really don't want to defend the College Board, but I think the latter part is a bit overstated - I remember when taking my AP US and Euro tests five years ago that we had essay questions on the rise of the right from Goldwater to Reagan and the fall of overambitious gunners.

Yeah, my APUSH curriculum went all the way through to the end of the Cold War.

My high school (which, believe it or not given my overall everything-about-me, had a vocational-technical focus; my second-favorite class (after English) was woodshop and I'm still quite handy with a bow saw or a belt sander) didn't even have AP courses. I literally didn't know what AP was until I was already in college. Our American history courses went up to Watergate or so--this was twelve or thirteen years ago now so Reagan, Gingrich, etc. still felt more contemporary and thus "less historical" than they do now--but our world history courses basically got to the end of the War, acknowledged that the Cold War was a thing that happened right afterwards, and then petered out.

[Figueira]

I've been thinking about this thread for a while, and I think it's hard to come up with a better answer than 1492. The fall of the Roman Empire was important, but there's nothing more era-ending than adding two new continents to the equation (of what Europeans knew about).

[RINO Tom]

I've been thinking about this thread for a while, and I think it's hard to come up with a better answer than 1492. The fall of the Roman Empire was important, but there's nothing more era-ending than adding two new continents to the equation (of what Europeans knew about).

Fair point, actually.  However, I think "Middle Ages" is used in such a Euro-centric way that the fall of the Byzantine Empire (an empire that based its entire existence and purpose on God's will and Orthodox Christianity, perfectly encapsulating the "Middle Ages" to me) is a pretty monumental shift ... even if it was a client state when it finally fell.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I've been thinking about this thread for a while, and I think it's hard to come up with a better answer than 1492. The fall of the Roman Empire was important, but there's nothing more era-ending than adding two new continents to the equation (of what Europeans knew about).

Fair point, actually.  However, I think "Middle Ages" is used in such a Euro-centric way that the fall of the Byzantine Empire (an empire that based its entire existence and purpose on God's will and Orthodox Christianity, perfectly encapsulating the "Middle Ages" to me) is a pretty monumental shift ... even if it was a client state when it finally fell.

Yeah, the thing with the Middle Ages is that it really doesn't make any sense except as a periodization of European history specifically. The modern era is clearly a world-historical reality, and 1492 obviously marks its beginning. The Middle Ages, however, weren't really a Thing in the Islamic World, or East Asia (we do use the word sometimes, like with the Japanese Middle Ages, but those were fundamentally different periods and not really connected in any meaningful way, and we'd be better off using a different one).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Periodization is always somewhat arbitrary. That said, I think there's a case for putting the date as late as 1648. It has the end of the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War, as well as the start of the Fronde and of the Second English Civil War.