Big History

Big History places the history of humanity and the Earth in the largest of contexts - that of the universe. The interdisciplinary approach taken in this Berkshire Essential volume 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, including several written by author David Christian, convey big history's 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.