david christian origin story a big history of everything

Elements of knowledge from physics to history are successfully turned into narrative, with characters like entropy taking the place of named leaders. Origin Story will do the same thing, only this time better, because with science.Ĭertainly, he manages to string together a dizzying quantity of facts into a book that still has an overarching theme and a consistent tone. The stories they told, he says, were stories that sought to teach young people about the world. A fictionalised, primordial Lake Mungo community, representing some of the oldest human societies on earth, acts as his reference point. This book is meant to be a new ‘origin myth’.

Teaching people about themselves is Christian’s stated aim. It brings together scientists and social scientists - though not humanists - to each contribute their field of expertise, ‘… so we can think more deeply about broad themes such as the nature of complexity, the nature of life, even the nature of our own species!’ The question of how deeply one can think about a subject when you have 300 pages in which to sum up 40 billion years of history is a bit beside the point it’s true that academic departments can become too fixated on their own methodology, and for the layman, the nitty-gritty specialisation of academic history tells you little about yourself and where you come from. Big History, he explains, is the ultimate interdisciplinary department. Origin Story begins with a manifesto: a defence of Christian’s field. Tags: Arundhati Roy/ Bill Gates/ David Christian/ Karl Marx/ Lewis HydeĬlearly written and ambitious, David Christian’s Origin Story manages to weave a comprehensive narrative about the evolution of the universe and the human species.

DAVID CHRISTIAN Origin Story: A big history of everything.

David christian origin story a big history of everything