Big History - by Cynthia Stokes Brown (Paperback)

About the Book

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. - Publisher.

Book Synopsis

"This exciting saga crosses space and time to illustrate how humans, born of stardust, were shaped--and how they in turn shaped the world we know today." --Publishers Weekly

This book offers "world history on a grand scale"--pulling back for a wider view and putting the relatively brief time span of human history in context. After all, our five thousand years of recorded civilization account for only about one millionth of the lifetime of our planet (Kirkus Reviews).

Big History interweaves different disciplines of knowledge, drawing on both the natural sciences and the human sciences, to offer an all-encompassing account of history on Earth. This new edition is more relevant than ever before, as we increasingly grapple with accelerating rates of change and, ultimately, the legacy we will bequeath to future generations. Here is a path-breaking portrait of our world, from the birth of the universe from a single point the size of an atom to life on a twenty-first-century planet inhabited by seven billion people.

Review Quotes

"This exciting saga crosses space and time to illustrate how humans, born of stardust, were shaped--and how they in turn shaped the world we know today."
--Publishers Weekly

"There's much to argue about in Brown's account, and much to discover."
--The Washington Post

"Brown combines the findings of major authorities in the natural sciences and the human sciences, crisply portraying the discoveries and debates on history at the grandest scale."
--Patrick Manning, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of World History, University of Pittsburgh

About the Author

Cynthia Stokes Brown is a retired professor of education at Dominican University of California. She has written works of history and biography, including the American Book Award-winning Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement, Connecting with the Past, and Refusing Racism. She lives in Berkeley, California.