I feel like viewing history temporally adds distance between two events that are actually the same, but only different in terms of WHEN they happened. I’m wondering what would be accomplished by grouping global historical events together in terms of relevant phenomena as opposed to creating a timeline, but after some initial digging I wasn’t able to find anything along these lines.
Good historians have never get lost in the rote chronology – read 'problems' below as a synonym for 'themes'.
"...judge talent at its best and character at its worst; suspect power more than vice, and study problems in preference to periods..." (Modern History Sourcebook: Lord Acton: Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History, 1906)