Christian presents this evolution as a series of implicitly ascending steps which he describes as thresholds. The narrative begins with the undifferentiated universe following the Big Bang and concludes with the emergence of our complex industrial civilization. Drawing on knowledge from a wide array of disciplines, Christian presents an engaging and coherent narrative, but also one that exhibits some conceptual flaws.Ī major theme of Christian’s narrative is the emergence and evolution of complexity. As he points out, his efforts are analogous to the ‘universal’ histories emerging within a variety of intellectual traditions over the past few centuries. Footnote 1 Christian’s goal is nothing less than to situate humanity within the whole history of the universe, providing readers with an idea of how the universe evolved and their place within the natural world. Prior products include a series of university-level textbooks, a successful Coursera Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), an impressive web-based secondary school curriculum, and that sine qua non of successful public outreach, a widely viewed TED talk. Christian titles this effort ‘Big History’. Aimed at a general audience, this well-written and interesting book is part of an ambitious effort to develop the naturalistic equivalent of a creation-origin myth for the human species.
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