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An introduction to a new way of looking at history, from a perspective that stretches from the beginning of time to the present day, Maps of Time is world history on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings. Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies—all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." Maps of Time opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting account of the known world, from the inception of space-time to the prospects of global warming, lays the groundwork for world history—and Big History—true as never before to its name.
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| $99.99 | Digital |
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Rhoderick Patricio
reviewed Maps of time on December 01, 2013
Maps of time
It took more than two months to read this 600-page book, intensively taking notes. That is to say that it really is worth it. I'm a graduate in history myself, and I like to read detailed monographs, but at the same time I'm very fond of authors that try to see the broader picture. "Big History" (as Christian propagates) requires courage and a talent to filter a storyline out of the chaotic mass of details, whilst respecting a thorough accurateness and a sense of nuance.
In this book Christian has chosen for the highest possible (bird)perspective, beginning with the Big Bang all the way up (though without using the word "progress") to the present, and even looking into the future of coming centuries and millenia.
I'm impressed by the literature Christian has digested and his ability to really capture the broader picture and present it in a digestible way. The most interesting chapter was the one in which he describes the big trends in agrarian societies, roughly between 3000 BCE and the year 1500: I've never read anything like that anywhere else.
But of course, such an ambitious work also has a lot of weaknesses. The most important to me is that Christian (whilst denying this explicitly) favours a kind of historical materialism: in almost all chapters the economic organisation of society is the driving force behind change or transformation; political and especially cultural developments or attitudes are downplayed or ignored.
Secondly Christian is following with a bit too much ease recent trends in historiography: in the chapter on the appearance of modern man (the homo sapiens) the main these is based on just one publication in a science magazine; Christian also almost blindly follows recent (western) publications that state that the Chinese economy from the eleventh until the eighteenth century was manyfold bigger and more intensive than the European/atlantic economy (there are indications that this is plausible, but not so much real proof). And finally, I have some issues with his final chapter, about the centuries and millennia to come: this is nothing less than an ecological pamphlet; and of course there are good reasons to do so, but as an historian, I'm very weary of political statements that use (misuse) the past as proof.
See also my review in my Sense-of-History-account:
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