Page "Periodization" Paragraph 4

Some of these usages will also be geographically specific.

This is especially true of periodizing labels derived from individuals or ruling elites, such as the Jacksonian Era in America, the Meiji Era in Japan, or the Merovingian Period in France.

Cultural terms may also have a limited reach.

Thus the concept of the " Romantic period " may be meaningless outside of Europe and European-influenced cultures.

Likewise, " the 1960s ", though technically applicable to anywhere in the world according to Common Era numbering, has a certain set of specific cultural connotations in certain countries.

For this reason it may be possible to say such things as " The 1960s never occurred in Spain.

" This would mean that the sexual revolution, counterculture, youth rebellion and so on never developed during that decade in Spain's conservative Roman Catholic culture and under Francisco Franco's authoritarian regime.

Likewise it is possible to claim, as the historian Arthur Marwick has, that " the 1960s " began in the late 1950s and ended in the early 1970s.

His reason for saying this is that the cultural and economic conditions that define the meaning of the period covers more than the accidental fact of a 10 year block beginning with the number 6.

This extended usage is termed the " long 1960s ".

This usage derives from other historians who have adopted labels such as " the long 19th century " ( 1789 – 1914 ) to reconcile arbitrary decimal chronology with meaningful cultural and social phases.

Similarly, an Eighteenth Century may run 1714 – 1789.

Eric Hobsbawm has also argued for what he calls " the short twentieth century ", encompassing the period from the First World War through to the end of the Cold War.