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This was good, definitely good but just so. Felt more of a concoction of already familiar works of some of the famous historians, scientists, biologists and anthropologists. Was hoping for something more insightful...
Many thanks to Little Brown, and Company for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest reviewBill Gates blurbed thisso| Goodreads | Blog | Pinterest | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram
I have a strong impulse to type the opening lyrics of the show Big Bang Theory, but I'll resist. Origin Story delivers exactly what it promises, the history ranging from the manifestation of the universe to the capitalism and global issues we go through today. I must admit that I glossed over a few chapters because I was here mostly for the human part and just a summary of the big bang. With that in mind, I did find reading the book a fairly enriching exercise that explains how humans evolved to...
Christian really puts the "big" in "big history". Somehow this book achieves both sweep and detail. He gives us the universe as a story of energy and information interacting to generate ever-increasing complexity, and I'm sold. By the time he's done, I'm thinking, "Yeah: that's a pretty good way to look at it. Hard to think of any aspect of history that doesn't fit into that schema." As for meticulous, illuminating detail, look at his account of how life forms emerged from non-living matter: wow...
I needed this book in my life! I knew most of it already, but to read the entire story as a whole was terrific!
Big History is becoming a familiar concept. Since it was launched in the 1990s by the Dutchman Fred Spier and in Australia by David Christian himself, it has taken on a life of its own. Christian first summed up his way of looking at history "on a large scale" in 2004 in his Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, which was an impressive book, though not without issues. Since then, variants and additions have been published by himself, but also by many others. Big History also has become a...
We all have an origin story. In some societies, they manifest as creation myths. In others, they look more like history textbooks. For example, as a kid in the United States, I grew up learning about the group of rebels who stood up to their British overlords and founded our country. It’s human nature to be curious about where we come from, and origin stories unite people through a common history and shared sense of purpose.But what if all of humanity shared an origin story? What would that stor...
David Christian's Origin Story: A Big History of Everything was my first go at 'big history' (13.8 billion years of it). Christian looked at threshold events the way futurists look at trends and singularities. These thresholds were like transitional mile markers differentiating one order (perhaps by a near extinction event) from the next. Christian looked at the numerous 'Goldilocks' conditions which allowed life to exist as it does today. Christian also brought origins myths into this history,
The first thing I have done after finishing the book is to unlike Bill Gates' review (4/5) of it. I also suspect if he reviewed and recommended this not because he personally found it great, but because he wanted others to read it as a good, lucid introductory book on Big History.The first half of the book is a poor cousin of "Cosmos" or "A Short history of Nearly Everything". It deals with the origin of the universe to the origin of human beings. The book has more information than insights and
• Big bang,• Big (and some very small) science,• Big history.David Christian takes his big approach to life, the universe and everything to provide a very readable and interesting book.Origin story will take the reader from billions of years ago up to the information age. He does this in two ways: the first using thresholds to define leaps and...well thresholds in space and evolution; second by accessible and engaging prose.For me the big bang, and how that developed along with its universes, ga...
loved this. Had the most wonderful sense of the sublime while reading it; I'm tiny and unimportant and my specific life could not matter less. Christian's framing of 21st-century power in terms of cell structures has made me deal better with my anxiety about how fucked the world is, and my fears for humanity in the near future. Excellent writing, about the only topic there is, really.
The Implications of the Unified WholeBacterias, baboons, rocks, oceans, auroras, meteors, planets, moons, stars, quarks, photons, supernovas, black holes, slugs, cell phones... — they are all part of the Enigmatic Whole — the infinite parts of Infinity, interacting and making History in a Cosmic Web where “a butterfly flaps its wings in Chicago and a tornado occurs in Tokyo.” Everything is connected. Every tiny, atomic event has an implication in the Mysterious, Unified Whole“I have written this...
David Christian already impressed by his seminal Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, published in 2004 (though I also had some issues with it). This was the first time someone tried to present a comprehensive overview of all of history, including that of the universe, in just one volume. I know, I’m ignoring H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World, but given its publication date (1922), I’ll guess you understand why: our knowledge of the evolution of the universe since then has evolve...
I want to read more good nonfiction, and came across this intriguing title - it fit the bill nicely, giving me a new cautiously optimistic outlook and taking my mind off of the dreadful news headlines for a bit.First of all, I really enjoyed the dry humor and interesting observations of the author. He uses the term Goldilocks to refer to the just right evolutionary conditions planet Earth possessed which allowed life to develop. The following passage is typical of his engaging style, in which he...
Scary stuff. Really scary, and important, and informational.This is science that everyone needs to understand. If you follow creationist theories, just skip over the bits on evolution. There is still some good information in here that won't go against your beliefs.
Wow - Where to begin? When I first started reading Origin Story, I had absolutely no idea that this book would grow to become one of my favourites. Trust me when I say that it is a nail-biter, I found it excruciatingly challenging to put down! Origin Story takes you on a journey through time, from the beginning of the universe at the Big Bang, to present day, and onwards into some likely scenarios for the future. It's difficult to praise this work without spoiling its contents, but I especially
Multidisciplinary look at the modern origin story of humankind. It begins with the big bang (astrophysics, quantum mechanics, etc.) and talks about star formation and planet formation. Then it goes on to discuss the history of earth and of life on earth (biology, chemistry, geology, etc.), all the way through present times (economics, history, sociology, etc.). It finishes up by looking at possible futures for us and the universe as a whole.I don't normally get as engaged with non-fiction books,...
This book is much overrated as is the so-called field of Big History. I kept thinking that this total is not the equal of the sum of its parts. This was a combination of Cosmos, A Short History of Nearly Everything, and Sapiens, but not even close to the equal of any of them. It succeeded best in its description of the creation of the universe, the sun, and Earth but went steadily downward as it shifted to sociology to be quite jarring. The book tried to do too much and succeeded in delivering t...
I'll be honest--it was a little difficult to concentrate on this as one of my summer selections, but I'm glad I did. The author is an engaging writer and I found myself carried along once I started. History and science are fascinating. Glad I picked it up.
Fascinating, well written, & full of information that you probably don’t know, but should. Makes you think, wonder, & want to learn more.