It is also during this phase that man's self-awareness reached its pinnacle, where men developed the historical record in order to transcend their impending personal deaths and place their existence in the large order of the human record. At one point during this phase, several scattered civilizations flourished at roughly the same time and same rate.
Jaspers lists several consequences of the transition from the prehistorical phase to the historical phase, which made man "truly human." First, the potentialities of man reached their full potential only during this phase, because not until then could they be rationalized, illuminated, verified, enhanced, and remembered after being lost. Second, man became conscious of his individual transitoriness, of his inevitable individual death. This awareness led him to develop a historical consciousness, in order to at least record his accomplishments for posterity. Third, the fact of history as a continual thrusting forward on the part of individuals became manifest; at the same time, it also became apparent that history is also a mere happening. There is a constant struggle between the forces which are the forward movements of individuals, who call others to follow them, and the force of the masses which are reluctant to forge ahead; indeed, the masses destroy those who are unable to arouse their belief.
The third phase of the scheme of world history is that of "true world history." Jaspers describes this as a planetary unity of the world, which was impossible until the last half of the Twentieth Century. This last phase required the development of universal communication in order to connect all parts of the world, meaning every civilization, with one another. According to Jasper, at the time of his writing, this last phase has not yet reached reality; we appear, however, to be in the transition period.
As can be determined from the above discussion, Jaspers most definitely views the c...