Spier takes us one important step forward in making big history accessible to all. I look forward to the next, more fully illustrated and documented, step in this process. ( Journal of World History, 1 August 2012
"This is a deep and important book that promises to send scholars in many different fields off on new paths in search of a grand unified theory of history." (Journal of Global History, 2011) "Personally, I think everyone should have access to this story, and I would put it at the heart of the national curriculum as well." (The Times Higher Education, September 2010)
"Brilliant. It pushes the project of theorizing big history a lot further, in exactly the right way, alert to the dangers of over–theorizing or theorizing on too limited information. It will be a major contribution to the discipline.
David Christian, Macquarie University, author of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History This book has convinced me not only that Big History is interesting and exciting, but has established a genuine intellectual basis for integrating historical knowledge, and historical method, with those of the natural world. This is a framework in which, ideally, all history should be investigated, taught and discussed.
R.I. Moore, Emeritus Professor, Newcastle University
"The most exciting book that I′ve read in 30 years. A masterpiece!"
Barry Rodrigue, University of Southern Maine
Narratives don t come much grander than the current scientific view of the history of the Universe Spier is one of a small band of exponents of big history, the effort to put the whole story together in an academically rigorous way Everyone should have access to this.
Times Higher Education Supplement
From the Back Cover
Big History places the human past within the history of life, the Earth, and the Universe. In doing so, this emerging field of historical study provides us with an overview of the known past in its entirety, from the beginning of time until the present day. In Big History and the Future of Humanity, Spier presents a simple theoretical approach that not only makes big history accessible, but reveals what the future may hold for humanity.
This original new approach interprets big history as the history of the rise and demise of complexity in all its myriad forms, from the greatest galaxy clusters to the tiniest sub–atomic particles. While focusing on energy flows through matter and the circumstances that produce complexity, the author traces the emergence and decline of all the major forms of complexity that have existed, including human societies and their products. Breathtaking in scope, Big History and the Future of Humanity offers provocative new insights into the origins and development of life and serves as an invitation to ponder humans place in the cosmos in a fascinating new way.
About the Author
Fred Spier is Senior Lecturer in Big History at the University of Amsterdam and also teaches Big History at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He is the author of Religious Regimes in Peru (1994), San Nicolás de Zurite (1995), and The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (1996).
