of the twentieth century, World History has a scope far beyond historians' traditional focus on politics, wars, and diplomacy, taking in a panoply of subjects like gender history, social history, cultural history, and environmental history. Organizations The H-World website and online network is used among some practitioners of world history, and allows discussions among scholars, announcements, syllabi, bibliographies and book reviews. The International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) approaches world history from the standpoint of comparative civilizations. Founded at a conference in 1961 in Salzburg, Austria, that was attended by Othmar Anderlie, Pitirim Sorokin, and Arnold J. Toynbee, this is an international association of scholars that publishes a journal, Comparative Civilization Review, and hosts an annual meeting in cities around the world. The Journal of Global History is a scholarly journal established in 2006 and is published by Cambridge University Press. The World History Association (WHA) was established in 1982, and is predominantly an American phenomenon. Since 1990, it publishes the Journal of World History on a quarterly basis. History Pre-modern The study of world history, as distinct from national history, has existed in many world cultures. However, early forms of world history were not truly global and were limited to only the regions known by the historian. In Ancient China, Chinese world history, that of China and the surrounding people of East Asia was based on the dynastic cycle articulated by Sima Qian circa 100 BC. Sima Qian's model is based on the Mandate of Heaven. Rulers rise when they united China, then are overthrown when such dynasty became corrupt. Each new dynasty begins virtuous and strong, but then decays, provoking the transfer of Heaven's mandate to a new ruler. The test of virtue in a new dynasty is success in being obeyed by China and neighboring barbarians. After 2000 years Sima Qian's model still dominates scholarship, although the dynastic cycle is no longer used for modern Chinese history. In Ancient Greece, Herodotus (5th century BC), as the founder of Greek historiography, presents discussions of the customs, geography, and history of Mediterranean peoples, particularly the Egyptians. His contemporary Thucydides rejected Herodotus's all-embracing approach to history, offering instead a more precise, sharply focused monograph, dealing not with vast empires over the centuries but with 27 years of war between Athens and Sparta. In Rome, the vast, patriotic history of Rome by Livy (59 BC – 17 AD)