“John McNeill suggests that “we have probably deployed more energy since 1900 than in all of human history before 1900” — David Christian Copy Share Image
Learning to domesticate the horse was a sort of energy revolution. — David Christian Copy Share Image
“It was possible to borrow British technology, and increasingly governments began to promote development. By the end of the nineteenth century, governments and large… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“the conquests of the Achaemenid and Hellenistic dynasties encouraged commercial and intellectual exchanges reaching from central Asia to India to the western Mediterranean. In… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“So, as networks expand in size, their potential intellectual synergy increases much faster: “larger and denser populations equal faster technological advance.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“typical modern households live in urban environments where they earn incomes through some form of wage work and buy food produced by others. In… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“no complex, nonlinear system can be adequately described by dividing it up into subsystems or into various aspects, defined beforehand.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“Both animal and human slaves could be controlled best if kept economically and psychically dependent on their owners.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“The modern world is ruled by larger and more impersonal forces, from faceless bureaucracies to abstractions such as “inflation,” or “the rule of law.”… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“contain into new, durable configurations, which can handle huge energy flows without disintegrating. This, we will see, is the characteristic pattern of all such… — David Christian Copy Share Image
We, as extremely complex creatures, desperately need to know this story of how the universe creates complexity and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility. — David Christian Copy Share Image
If, in schools, we keep teaching that history is divided into American history and Chinese history and Russian history and Australian history, we're teaching… — David Christian Copy Share Image
An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing that can create even more sophisticated things, such as chickens. And we know in our heart of… — David Christian Copy Share Image
