# Periodization **Domain:** Historiography / Knowledge Organization **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Developing ## Definition **Periodization** divides history into named intervals so that events can be organized, compared and narrated. ## Epistemic Context Periods are useful containers, but their boundaries can conceal continuities across calendar lines and make simultaneous international work appear sequential. The boundary is part of the representation, not a natural break in the underlying process. ## AI-History Context [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s]] uses work spanning 1965 through 1982 to show that the decade is an argumentative frame rather than an isolated technical era. ## Key Insight **A period organizes the record while also deciding which continuities become difficult to see.**