Although the academic study of world history is relatively new, having been initiated in the 1970s by historians who wished to move beyond national and regional approaches, it has roots in remote antiquity. The great world religions that originated in the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—insisted on the unity of humanity, a theme encapsulated in the story of Adam and Eve. Buddhism also presumed an ecumenical view of humankind. The universal histories that characterized medieval chronicles proposed a single story line for the human race, governed by divine providence, and these persisted,
, in the speculative philosophies of history of Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) and G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831). Marxism too, although it saw no divine hand in history, nevertheless held out a teleological vision in which all
the miseries arising from class conflict and leave the kingdom of necessity for the kingdom of plenty.