“Even in Jericho, the oldest-known farming village, the walls, which were once believed to have been fortifications, are now thought to have… — David Christian Jericho Oldest Copy Share Image
“Unlike water, which prefers to lie flat as it accumulates, material wealth in complex societies likes to pile itself up into huge… — David Christian Material wealth Copy Share Image
“most of human history (chronologically speaking) has taken place in communities quite innocent of state power.” — David Christian History 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 Technology Copy Share Image
“Moses Finley has argued, with only slight exaggeration, that “what passed for economic growth in antiquity was always achieved only by external… — David Christian Economic growth Copy Share Image
“new forms of contraception, new methods of child rearing, and new forms of education and public welfare have provoked a fundamental renegotiation… — David Christian Children Copy Share Image
I think what I was after was a unifying story that could bring everything together, that could give me a sense of… — David Christian After Copy Share Image
Our goal is to see Big History become a normal part of high school curricula. I'd love to see it being taught… — David Christian Become Copy Share Image
“Human knowledge, by its nature, has limits, so some questions must remain mysteries. Some religions treat such mysteries as secrets that the… — David Christian Buddhism Copy Share Image
In literature classes, you don't learn about genes; in physics classes you don't learn about human evolution. So you get a fragmented… — David Christian About Copy Share Image
“Living organisms are constructed, for the most part, from compounds of carbon and hydrogen. Carbon is critical because of its astonishing flexibility.… — David Christian Biology 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… — David Christian Change Copy Share Image
“though they are on the whole less violent, personal relations in modern urban communities also lack the intimacy and continuity of those… — David Christian Community Copy Share Image
“Innovation ensured that each cycle normally reached a higher level than its predecessor, but innovation was normally too slow to prevent an… — David Christian Innovation Copy Share Image
“the universe may, in fact, be bigger than this, because the notion of inflation suggests that in the first second of its… — David Christian Life Copy Share Image
“Stars form durable structures because they are the result of a negotiated compromise between gravity, which crushes matter together, and the explosive… — David Christian Astronomy Copy Share Image
“For the first time there appeared on earth kings, dictators, high priests, emperors, prime ministers, presidents, governors, mayors, generals, admirals, police chiefs,… — David Christian Concentration camp Copy Share Image
“The primordial gases accounted for 98 percent of the material in the cloud from which our sun formed (hydrogen made up ca.… — David Christian Helium Copy Share Image
“The efficiency of information exchanges reflects, above all, the nature and regularity of contacts and exchanges between different communities.” — David Christian Exchanges Copy Share Image
We inhabit an obscure planet, in an obscure galaxy, around an obscure sun, but on the other hand, modern human society represents… — David Christian Community Copy Share Image
Big History studies the history of everything, offering a way of making sense of our world and our role within it. — David Christian Big Copy Share Image
“Earth, for example, is made up of oxygen (almost 50 percent) and smaller amounts of iron (19 percent), silicon (14 percent), magnesium (12.5 percent),” — David Christian Earth Copy Share Image
“John McNeill suggests that “we have probably deployed more energy since 1900 than in all of human history before 1900” — David Christian Energy Copy Share Image
“There were African slaves in China from at least the seventh century CE, and, Wolf reports, “by 1119 most of the wealthy… — David Christian Slaves Copy Share Image
“what we can see may constitute no more than 10 percent, and perhaps as little as 1 percent, of the matter in the universe.” — David Christian 10 Percent 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,… — David Christian American Copy Share Image
I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the… — David Christian Also 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… — David Christian About Copy Share Image
Big History's not going to replace existing educational courses. It's not an attack on specialisation. It is simply the argument that specialisation… — David Christian Argument Copy Share Image
“Bioarchaeologists have linked the agricultural transition to a significant decline in nutrition and to increases in disease, mortality, overwork, and violence in… — David Christian Skeletal Copy Share Image
“If modernity is, as I will argue, a global phenomenon, a Eurocentric approach is bound to mislead us. More recently, historians interested… — David Christian Eurocentric Copy Share Image
“Trying to look at the whole of the past is, it seems to me, like using a map of the world. No… — David Christian Historians Copy Share Image
“despite the absence of a real state monopoly on violence, early states were much more formidable structures than chiefdoms. And everywhere they… — David Christian Division of labor Copy Share Image
I remember very vividly, as a child growing up in England, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a few days, the… — David Christian Children Copy Share Image
“an eleventh-century CE Muslim prince from Tabaristan wrote in a book for his son, “Make it your constant endeavor to improve cultivation… — David Christian Books Copy Share Image
“the elements of a modern creation myth are all around us. It is harmful because it contributes to the subtle but pervasive… — David Christian Anomie Copy Share Image
“A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste—And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reached The NOTHING it set… — David Christian Caravan Copy Share Image
“People must therefore get away from the idea that serious work is restricted to beating to death a well-defined problem in a… — David Christian Academic life Copy Share Image
“As the previous chapter showed, mobile communities of foragers have good reasons to limit population growth. But if they settle down, those… — David Christian Change Copy Share Image
“the basic rules of serious futurology are (a) look for the large trends and analyze how they work, (b) construct models to… — David Christian Futurology Copy Share Image
