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Origin Story: A Big History of Everything Paperback – May 21, 2019
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Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day -- and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence?
These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History," the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In Origin Story, Christian takes readers on a wild ride through the entire 13.8 billion years we've come to know as "history." By focusing on defining events (thresholds), major trends, and profound questions about our origins, Christian exposes the hidden threads that tie everything together -- from the creation of the planet to the advent of agriculture, nuclear war, and beyond.
With stunning insights into the origin of the universe, the beginning of life, the emergence of humans, and what the future might bring, Origin Story boldly reframes our place in the cosmos.
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateMay 21, 2019
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100316392014
- ISBN-13978-0316392013
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Editorial Reviews
Review
―Bill Gates
"In Origin Story, David Christian has found a spectacular way to use history to put order in the entire set of our knowledge about the world. This is a wonderful achievement."
―Carlo Rovelli, author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time
"A remarkable book that puts us self-important humans in our proper place in the cosmos, yet also explains why the story of human culture and knowledge -- what Christian calls collective learning -- matters for understanding our present world and shaping its future."―Merry Wiesner-Hanks, President of the World History Association
"David Christian is not one for half measures. Origin Story is a majestic distillation of our current understanding of the birth and development of the universe, of the solar system, of the oceans, of mountains and minerals, of all life on earth and of the driving dynamics of human culture and achievement. All of this in just over 300 pages of captivating prose that weaves together innumerable insights from dozens of disciplines in the sciences, arts and humanities. With fascinating ideas on every page and the page turning energy of a good thriller, this is a landmark work that comes at a time when it has never been more important for humanity as a whole to have a clearer, more informed understanding of our place on earth and of the earth's place in the cosmos."―Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element
"Mr. Christian tells this story very well, providing, in effect, a short course in modern science. This is a brief history of the universe, and an excellent one."―The Wall St. Journal
"The most powerful example of interdisciplinary scholarship that I know of."―- Fareed Zakaria, CNN
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Product details
- Publisher : Little, Brown Spark; Reprint edition (May 21, 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0316392014
- ISBN-13 : 978-0316392013
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #131,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #110 in Natural History (Books)
- #421 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- #3,004 in World History (Books)
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book an easy read that develops a vocabulary. They also find the content very informative and a current account of our origins.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book very informative, with a great approach to a new kind of history. They also say the topic is complex and involves many different branches of science. Readers appreciate the interesting description of the evolution of the universe and the earth's place in it. They are surprised by the depth and breadth of material covered in the book.
"...Yes, it challenges religiously based origin stories and reinforces the wonder of life itself." Read more
"...An ambitious undertaking, the book is readable, interesting and thought provoking...." Read more
"...This author approaches it from a different angle and makes it interesting." Read more
"...I did find parts of it to be very interesting, and I definitely learned many things along the way, thus the 3-star rating, but it just wasn't the..." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read, well-done in its presentation, and flowing with the prose of an inspired poet. They say the book develops a vocabulary and the depth of content fluctuates remarkably from topic to topic.
"...An ambitious undertaking, the book is readable, interesting and thought provoking...." Read more
"...a book with more knowledge condensed into one place in such a readable form. You want wisdom and perspective? Read this! JACK" Read more
"...The writing is well done and well researched...." Read more
"...I love reading science books, so this was an easy, entertaining book from that perspective.But this is a history book as well...." Read more
Customers find the story comprehensive, fascinating, and a great read tying multiple disciplines together. They also appreciate the connection from the beginning to now.
"...amazing new book that weaves this knowledge into a surprisingly readable 300-page narrative story of the universe for the last 13 billion years...." Read more
"...This book ties so much together. I'm not done yet, but I know I love it. He writes in such an engaging way - really sucks you in." Read more
"...is able to put them all together in an enjoyable and fascinating read is exciting...." Read more
"...a cohesive and easily understandable way to put forth a comprehensive and fascinating story. A must read for all!" Read more
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Now comes an amazing new book that weaves this knowledge into a surprisingly readable 300-page narrative story of the universe for the last 13 billion years. Up till now to attain this updated knowledge you would have to read separate books or take separate courses in each of the above specialties. Christian takes us on an epochal journey from the first milliseconds of the big bang, the formation of atoms and elements to the structural formation of the universe. From there we are taken to the formation of chemical elements to the formation of the earth and the beginning of life in the form of single celled prokaryotes 3 billion years ago. Photosynthesis, Cyanobacteria, plate tectonics all play a role in making our planet unique in our solar system as the only place hospitable for life. Then evolve the Eukaryotes through a combining of more primitive cells to form a new type of oxygen breathing cell, which make all multicellular animals and us possible. With the evolution of large bodied animals comes the evolution of large brains and consciousness. With the appearance of humans comes sharing and generational transmission of information and technologies. This ability proves crucial to the development of globe changing events such as agriculture and the scientific revolution. Along the way to us there were all sorts of blind alleys, near miss encounters and apocalyptic disaster scenarios that didn’t completely play out just by good luck and serendipity. One such occurrence caused by volcanism, happened 70,000 years ago and brought the number of our species to just 10,000 individuals and almost to the brink of extinction. This makes our life and all life on earth as we see it now a miraculous and beautiful occurrence.
In a sense this book while conveying the history of the universe and human societies always emphasizes throughout the fact that energy flows, the laws of thermodynamics are the fundamental factors operating in the physical universe, biological systems and human civilizations. We learn “wealth never really consists of things; it consists of control over energy flows that make, move, mine and transform things”. Agrarian societies and empires could never bring wealth to a majority of the population because they could never produce enough surplus energy. They could only concentrate wealth in an elite ruling class of perhaps 10%-15% of the population. The discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels in the last 200 years, which are nothing more than reservoirs of ancient sunlight, has engendered a huge explosion in the energy, wealth available to human societies and made possible the almost sevenfold explosion of human population, middle classes and advanced western civilization. However, we learn here that the earth has undergone numerous mass extinctions caused by CO2 induced global warming, the last catastrophic one, over 50 million years ago called the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum that wiped out over 50% of all genera on earth. That event was caused by a huge explosion of volcanism emitted CO2. By burning fossil fuels and emitting huge quantities of CO2 in the same manner, are we at the beginning of just such an event? Christian emphasizes that we have reached a critical point in the evolution of life on earth where one species, us, now control the fate of our entire ecosystem. We can put into play our knowledge of how the universe works that we have assiduously garnered over the last several hundred years or we can ignore what we know, instead let greed and tribalism reign and plunge our planet into an unknown future of chaos and destruction where our very survival will be at risk. This must be one of the great turning points in history like the invention of agriculture or the discovery of fossil fuels where mankind has no choice but to utilize his innovative abilities and technologies to harness the sun’s energies directly. I don’t think I have ever encountered a book with more knowledge condensed into one place in such a readable form. You want wisdom and perspective? Read this! JACK
Understandably the author of a big history of "everything" has to be sensitive to which historical topics to include, which to exclude, which to briefly cover, and which to cover in deep detail. That said, I felt like the author often did a poor job of this. A good example is there is almost zero in the book about how human language developed/evolved/splintered, yet there were pages upon pages upon pages of detailed chemistry during the account of how exactly a star is formed. In my opinion that's not the proper ratio. Even within the topic of science there were imbalances, and there seemed to be a general preference towards deep-dive topics (how molecules interact with each other) versus big picture stuff (such as topics that weren't even given a single sentence like the invention/discovery of calculus or the development of the scientific method).
I also didn't really care for the author's use of analogy, including his oft-repeated "entropy tax" paradigm which didn't really work for me for whatever reason, although admittedly this is squarely in the nitpick category.
Lastly I will say that I came away feeling like the author had two goals when he started writing this book, and then worked backwards to fulfill those goals. His first goal seemed to be to replace religious origin stories with a scientific one (big bang etc.). And his second goal was to put out a stern warning about climate change. By the way I'm not arguing that either of those are bad goals--in fact I think both are reasonable objectives. But what it felt like to me is the author had a thoroughly considered beginning to the book (origin story) and a thoroughly considered ending to the book (warning of climate change), and then had to work backwards to try and fill in the middle of the book with "everything else". But the middle seemed to fall victim to this as it often slogged on as the author didn't seem to be as personally inspired by the topics and by finding the right balance within them. I could be misreading that but that was my take.
Anyhow, OK book, I can't say I'd recommend it but if you read it you will definitely learn things and gain a new perspective on historical timelines.