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Wow! What a journey. This is a textbook but an absorbing read. It literally starts with the beginning of the universe and takes a big view of history in a remarkable and fascinating meld of science and history. This is a book to be read many times in the future.
This is the first book I ever read in the new field of study, big history. It is a macroview of the universe, starting with the big bang moving forward to the modern world, the Anthropocene. I found it a compelling read, though very long, moving from a universe of energy to atoms, to stars, to planets, to life, to humans. Not being a biblical literalist, I found it a good history of the everything, from the creation of the world until today. It seems to me that though many historians and archaeo...
This textbook gives a brief history of the universe. It is told through the development of eight breakthroughs—“thresholds”— that begin with the Big Bang and end with the Anthropocene of the modern world. It is the story of pockets of growing complexity despite encroaching entropyThe two most important concepts in this book are thresholds and complexity. Thresholds are used as a heuristic for understanding how increasing complexity reaches a tipping point whereby it gives rise to emergent proper...
--全球套利到 16 世纪中期,欧洲人(最早是西班牙征服者)逐渐意识到,他们处于全球网络核心的这种新地位的真正优势,不仅在于开发这些网络的特定部分,也在于通过让货物在不同世界区流动而创造的套利利润之中。他们开始发现世界第一个全球贸易体系的巨大商业潜力。在这个新兴的全球套利体系中,有两个关键要素,即秘鲁的白银和中国快速增长的经济。在 15 世纪,随着中国人口增长和商业发展,中国政府需要更多白银来铸币。一开始,他们在日本找到了所需的白银。然而,到了 16 世纪,人口增长——玉米、甘薯和花生等美洲农作物的引进也促进了这种增长——导致白银供不应求。中国政府开始要求以白银交税,白银的相对价值上涨,日本不再能够满足中国的需求。事实上,据估计,1500 年到 1800 年间,美洲开采的白银有 75% 最终流入中国。中国的高银价和美洲的低银价(因为美洲存在大量白银,而且是在恶劣环境下使用奴隶开采的)推动了世界第一个全球交换体系的运转,也为世界第一个全球金融网络的创建提供了条件。世界第一种全球货币,即西班牙比索支配着那个贸易体系。16 世纪 40 年代,中国的银价是欧洲的两倍,而中国的丝绸和瓷器比欧洲相...
本書前1/3與HG Wells的世界史綱如出一轍,自138億年前的大霹靂這個很久很久以前開始講起,不過後2/3就轉入人類學、社會學、政治學甚至經濟學的混合體,看的出作者想從更廣的一面來看人類歷史,但從如此寬廣的角度切入對作者的知識需求實在太大,縱觀史上很難有學者能憑一己之力而為,最後反而顧此失彼或只能搔到皮毛。加上只要是外國學者談世界史的我都習慣先從其論中國史的章節開始看起,憑良心講及格的根本屈指可數,這本書在這點上也犯了同樣的毛病,例如商朝何來母系社會?武則天佔據了中國本來已少到不能再少的篇幅也就算了,連花木蘭這種虛構人物也能拿來概括中國歷史?想想看如果一個文明古國都不能或不願去了解,怎麼能談世界史?要不是本書的創意與企圖心,可能其評價又會下降不少,奉勸想要花錢去買的朋友要謀定後動…
This college text-book is a readable and interesting history of the universe from the big bang to a history of the future. It provides enough information about each era so that the reader is informed without becoming bogged down in detail. The thirteen chapters cover the formation of the universe, our solar system, life, and early human evolution. It continues with a history of agriculture, the emergence of cities and empires around the world and their subsequence histories, the modern revolutio...
不管在哪里发生,工业革命都会引起社会生活的巨大变化。这种转变的标志为:工厂代替农场和田园,时钟代替季节,小家庭代替大家族,变化代替稳定性。与以往不同,许多人在其一生中都能感受到这种变化的社会和技术变革。这是一本手机适合全人类思考关于人类起源发展的书,从物理生物化学地理国家民族技术革命历史事件,一种流动的变化的全球化的视角,不局限。其中对于国家和民族意识的定义让我有新的灵感,是一本值得一读再读刷新自己思维模式的书。