Big History: Between Nothing and Everything

This book, and The Big History Project, can take your mind to revolutionary perspectives. Consider: our written human history goes back around 4,000 years, but life began on our planet Earth around 4 billion years ago. So all of our written human history -- what we've simply considered to be "history" -- covers only about one MILLIONTH of the history of life on earth. There was obviously a lot written in the book of life before our species branched out from the family of big apes around 7 million years ago. In just my own field of religion, it's revolutionary to think that our religions aren't likely to have a lot to say about human nature or ethics -- who we are and how we should live. Why? Because our religions are simply too NEW! We've been taught that our major religions are umbrellas under which many other disciplines can be grouped. So under the umbrella of "Biblical religions," for example, we can find what is most profoundly true, who we are, how God or Jesus or Allah want us to live, where we came from, where we're going, and so on. But no. The biggest "umbrella" -- or metastory -- is Big History: the overarching story of the universe from the Big Bang to today, which can all be told without jargon, in the same basic concepts. Now the question to ask of all our religions is whether, or to what extent, they are really the best ways to understand who we are and how we should live. Ethologists, for example, have gathered thousands of observations of animal behavior, and have found that even our most "special" abilities -- empathy, compassion, fairness, territoriality for example -- are shown in the behavior of other animals, especially the social species, of which we are the most competent and the most arrogant. This is not anthropomorphizing animals; it's realizing that these characteristic abilities were never ONLY ours. We share these behaviors with billions of other animals who were exhibiting them before we evolved to give them names. As the 20th Century Christian theologian Rudolph Bultmann asked in his 1941 essay "The New Testament and Mythology," once we have removed the ancient 3-story worldview and its attendant supernaturalism, does Christianity (or any other religion) really have much to offer modern people? An honest answer to these questions -- at this time when only about 18% of Americans attend ANY church regularly and 30% of adults under 30 describe their religion as None -- is "probably not." That's revolutionary, and both this book and The Big History Project help us gain a much-needed humility about exalting the teachings and worldview of any religion (or any science). Perhaps its greatest gift is doing its work in ordinary language, translating out of the many jargons that keep us out of most sciences and religions. In some ways, Big History is putting on a banquet that makes the well-established theory of evolution look like a side dish: nourishing, but small potatoes.

Along with Cynthia Brown and Craig Benjamin, David Christian draws on physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, anthropology, and other fields to tell the coherent, evidence based story of the stages from the Big Bang 13.82 billion years ago until now, with reasoned expectations for the future. It places the written record of the human past within the natural record of the entire past. The periods of the past are embedded now in what we are made of and how we are made. The common origin of everything in a singularity of infinite heat and density without mass, of all life on earth from the Last Universal Common Ancestor, of all humans from a sturdy band of Africans about 200,000 years ago is a powerful story. You are made of hydrogen atoms that were likely formed soon after the Big Bang and carbon that was formed in a star at least five billion years ago. The gold in the ring on your finger was made in a supernova. Our inheritance from the past is profound - and the authors explain it all well.

Knowledge is changing faster and faster so a book like this is never up to date. Also, the emphasis it gives to each of its respective fields of knowledge will not please everyone. Having said all that, this is a wonderful introduction to the wide range of the principal phases through which the universe - eventually including us - has gone through to get to where awe are now. Essential reading not just for students but for anyone who doesn't yet have an appreciation of the sweep of 'all existence'.

Not in the best shape, but perfect for what I needed. It came really fast and was a good price for a broke college student like me.

If you are interested in the so called "Big History" i.e. from Nothing (Big Bang) to Everything (today) then this is the place to start.A very readable textbook that introduces to this vast subject. Very clearly written but based on the best current scientific knowledgethat humanity has acquired. The photos, tables etc are very helpful. It is a totally five star textbook (my only grudge being that like most textbooks it is a bit pricey).

I wish schools could start teaching this, it's absolutely fascinating. A great summary of our current human understanding. He presents most of the ideas, appropriately, as theories because that's what they are. That being said it's a great way to catch up on our current understanding of the world as we know it (or at least what people who have spent their whole lives studying these things believe).

This is the way I would have loved to be introduced to History as a youngster, to paraphrase Bill Gates. The study of history has reached a Goldilocks threshold,a phrase often used by David Christian, where it is possible to integrate all physical sciences into History because of the remarkable modern means developed to date almost everything in our universe. Above all the authors have made their subject matter accessible and interesting.

Very informative book. Really helped me with my History Class.

This book combines physics, chemistry, biology and other subjects with the history of everything from the Big Bang to present day. A truly inspirational book.

Excellent book! An amazing student book if you are taking the on line course on Big History.

Por su contenido, la estructura de este, la presentación y el formatoRecomendado para todo aquel que quiera estar informado en el proceso histórico global

Le meilleur livre d'histoire qui soit.Rend plus intelligent...Lire aussi "Maps of Time" : un seul regret, l'absence de version française.