Big History (Berkshire Essentials) - Softcover

David Christian; William H. McNeill; Jerry H. Bentley; Ralph C. Croizier; J. R. McNeill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933782927 ISBN 13: 9781933782928

Publisher: Berkshire Pub Group, 2011

Synopsis

Big History places the history of humanity and the Earth in the largest of contexts--that of the universe. The interdisciplinary approach taken in Big History draws from diverse fields including archaeology, paleoanthropology, astronomy, and biology and raises new questions about the future of our species and its relationship to the biosphere. The articles included, several written by big-history author David Christian, convey big historys span and scope from cosmology, creation myths, and the Gaia theory to ice ages, extinctions, and migrations. Big History also explains why many geologists believe the world entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when human activity unwittingly became the single most important force for change in the biosphere.

About this title

About the Author:

David Christian is a professor of world history at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and co-founder, with Bill Gates, of the Big History Project. In 1989, Christian began teaching the first course on "big history," an interdisciplinary field that examines history starting with the Big Bang, and his work came to the attention of Bill Gates through a video course produced by The Teaching Company. He is the author of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, which won the World History Association book prize (2004), and is writing a history of Central Asia. He is also the author of Living Water: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation and (with R. E. F. Smith) Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia. He has spoken about big history at the TED Conference, the World Economic Forum, and on the Comedy Central program The Colbert Report.

Review:

"This small volume, part of a series from Berkshire Publishing that addresses large topical issues in history with easy-to-read and reference encyclopedia style works, investigates Big History, the study of history through very large periods of time and the examinations of geologic, atmospheric and biological phenomena that shaped the course of world development." --Reference & Research Book News

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkshire Pub Group
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1933782927
• ISBN 13: 9781933782928
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Jerry Bentley, University Of Hawaii, Manoa, Ralph Croizier, University Of Vicoria, William McNeill, University Of Chicago, John McNeill, Georgetown University