Your favourite century

[Sarpedon]

World history was pretty much static until the 16th - 18th century CE.

I respectfully disagree. Progress may have been slower, but it was there. There was also liveliness in the arts, which shouldn't be ignored. Much of the progress took place in fields that scholars tend to pooh-pooh, like crafts, technical skills, civic and social life, and the decorative arts.

 

[Sarpedon]

I wouldn't mind going back to perhaps ancient Sumerian times. They say all the women there went bare chested. At least the scenery would be nice to look at while I observe the invention of writing and early math.

The Minoans had a similar custom, and plumbing and sanitation to boot!

 

[rousseau]

World history was pretty much static until the 16th - 18th century CE.

I respectfully disagree. Progress may have been slower, but it was there. There was also liveliness in the arts, which shouldn't be ignored. Much of the progress took place in fields that scholars tend to pooh-pooh, like crafts, technical skills, civic and social life, and the decorative arts.

A lot of interesting and important stuff definitely happened between the agricultural revolution and industrialization, but the scale of social change in our entire history before 1800 barely compares to it afterward, which was more toward my point. Then if you move backward from the agricultural revolution time scales out even further: almost nothing changed in the prior couple hundred thousand years. At that point we're starting to talk about biological changes.

Talking completely out of my ass, I'd think religion likely had the most profound influence on human-kind pre-industrialization, outside of agricultural innovation itself.