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From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations: A Big History AnthologyEdited by Barry Rodrigue, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev |
Big History is a new field that has been developing rapidly around the world. What is Big History? According to its professional definition: Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity by using the best empirical evidence and scholarly methods. Big History deals with the universes grand narrative of 13.8 billion years and provides a connection between our past, present and future. It encompasses all forms of existence and all time scales. The present collection is divided into three volumes and is the first international and comprehensive anthology of Big History. In volume one Our Place in the Universe: An Introduction to Big History our existence is regarded from different points of view: as a history of the universe, as a philosophy, and as a factor in the life of people. This edition will challenge and excite your vision of your own life and the new discoveries going on around us. Together with the authors, who come from all the inhabited continents of our planet, readers will engage in a fascinating trip into the depths of time and space, and we hope they will join us in coming to an understanding of our origins and our future.
Contents
Preface: The Sphere of Big History
Barry Rodrigue, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev Introduction: From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations
Part I: Big History as a History of the Universe
1. Roberta Bondar The Shadow of Night . . . and No Boundaries
2. G. Siegfried Kutter A Brief Account of the Science of Big History
3. Walter Alvarez, Alessandro Montanari and David Shimabukuro Ex Libro Lapidum Historia Mundi: Reading History Written in Rocks
4. David Christian History and Time
5. Hubert Reeves Origins: A Question of Cosmic History
6. George Ellis Emergence of Complexity and Causality: Physics Transcended
Part II: Big History as Philosophy and Methodology
7. Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, Robert Carneiro and Fred Spier Evolutionary Mega-Paradigms: Potential, Problems, Perspectives
8. Graeme Snooks The Cosmos and the Logos: A Realist Theory of Life’s Emergence, Evolution and Future
9. Akop Nazaretyan Mega-Evolution and Big History
10. Robert King Is there a Limit to the System?: Philosophical Presuppositions in Systematic Ontology, Epistemology and Criticism
Part III: Big History as an Active Life Position
11. Carlos Londoño Sulkin, with Antonio Vélez Antonio Vélez: A Champion of Big History
12. Barry Rodrigue A New Design for Living
13. Alexander Mirkovic The Real End of History
14. Ananta Kumar Giri Social Theory and Asian Dialogues: Cultivating Planetary Conversations
15. Nigel Hughes The Change We Can Believe In: Ten Facts about the Evolution of the Earth-Life System and Their Relevance to Current Global Environmental Change
Part IV: Big History and the Life of People
16. Sun Yue The Tao of ‘Big History’ in China: Chinese Traditions
17. Craig Benjamin A Little Big History of Jericho
18. Esther Quaedackers A Little Big History of Tiananmen
19. Lowell Qustafson Big Politics
20. David Hookes The Evolution of Information Systems: From the Big Bang to the Era of Globalization
Bibliography
Notes on Editors and Contributors
Index
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