An epic for our time, Big History
begins when the universe is no more than a single point the size of an
atom, squeezed together in unimaginable density, and ends with a
twenty-first-century planet inhabited by 6.1 billion people. It's a
story that takes in prehistoric geology, human evolution, the agrarian
age, the Black Death, the voyages of Columbus, the industrial
revolution, and global warming.
Historian Cynthia Brown visits the Vikings, the Mayas and Aztecs, the
Incas, the Mongol empire, and the Islamic heartlands. Along the way she
considers topics as varied as cell formation, population growth, global
disparities, and illiteracy, creating a stunning synthesis of
historical and scientific knowledge of humanity and the earth we
inhabit.
Big
History represents a new kind of history, one that
skillfully interweaves historical knowledge and cutting-edge science.
In an age of global warming, when the fate of the earth hangs in the
balance, scientific advances permit us to see the universe as never
before, grasping the timescales that allow us to understand the history
of mankind in the context of its ecological impact on the planet.
Cynthia Brown's lucid, accessible narrative is the first popularization
of this innovative new field of study, as thrilling as it is ambitious. |
Big History
From the Big Bang to the
Present
by Cynthia Stokes Brown
New Press,
2007
Order
a copy
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