“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 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
“As an anonymous wit is supposed to have put it: "Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas which, given enough time, changes into… — 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… — David Christian Copy Share Image
...from schools to universities to research institutes, we teach about origins in disconnected fragments. We seem incapable of offering a unified account… — David Christian Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, historians have become so absorbed in detailed research that they have tended to neglect the job of building larger-scale maps of… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“defines domestication as “the human creation of a new form of plant or animal—one that is identifiably different from its wild ancestors… — David Christian Domestication 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
“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 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
“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
I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“Machiavelli’s descriptions of the strategic and tactical rules of this world are valuable despite an element of caricature: A Prince, therefore, should… — David Christian Art Copy Share Image
“Within a single information network, processes of collective learning may be more or less powerful in different regions; it is thus possible… — David Christian Copy Share Image
I had this feeling that, somehow, we ought to be teaching not just the history of particular nations or particular regions, but… — David Christian Copy Share Image
Maps of Time attempts to assemble a coherent and accessible account of origins, a modern creation myth. — 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 Slavery Copy Share Image
“The explosive properties of gunpowder were first used in war by the Jin, the northern rivals of the Song, in 1221.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“In the 1990s, global military expenditures declined by perhaps 40 percent, and stocks of weapons of all kinds fell.” — David Christian Investing 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
“Robert de Balsac, ended a study on warfare with the remark that “most important of all, success in war depends on having… — David Christian Education 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 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 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 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
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 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
“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
“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
“there are several distinct types of networks of exchange, each with its own typical range and characteristics. The main types that they… — David Christian Networks Copy Share Image
“All knowledge systems, from modern science to those embedded in the most ancient of creation myths, can be thought of as maps… — David Christian Knowledge Copy Share Image
“Choices whose outcomes matter even though they are neither deterministic nor completely random surround us all the time. So it is not… — David Christian Predictions Copy Share Image
