How accurate is this video of world history?

by shivaNine
DudeTheObscure

Well, first let's look at its creator, sources, and citations. The "research" was done by something calling itself "Drex," the YouTube page of which says that it is "Just a lazy person that nearly never makes videos, and the ones I make post false information." The main source cited is "Wikipedia" -- and that's not actually a citation, just a bibliography entry; none of the specific information in the video is specifically cited to any specific Wikipedia page (although even that wouldn't be particularly useful). The citations of the boringly "epic" music in the soundtrack are more detailed than the "citations" (such as they are) of the "information" (such as it is) in the map animation.

And even if we assume that the information presented in it is "accurate" in some way, what information is being presented? It's a series of maps showing the boundaries of....what? States? But the concept of a "state" (and their "boundaries") has changed quite a bit over the 5000+ years shown in the video.

And the video uses an idiotically narrow definition of "history." There were human beings all over the globe at the time the video starts, yet only one "state" is shown, in northeastern Africa. So the vast majority of the human race, who lived in the unmarked part of the video's map, doesn't have any "history"?

It also tells us nothing about developments in technology, art, philosophy and religion, economics, political systems, social structure, gender, family organization, trade routes, diplomacy, etc., etc., etc.

Calling this a "history of the world" is about as accurate as taking a photo of a human body, labeling some but not all of the visible external parts ("arm," "leg," "nose," etc.), and calling it "a description of how the human body works."