Ideas worth spreading

The history of our world in 18 minutes

13,809,747 views |

David Christian |

TED2011

• March 2011

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn about 13.7 billion years of shared history via a Big History course.

Organize a Big History lesson for students.

About the speaker

David Christian

David Christian

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David Christian teaches an ambitious world history course that tells the tale of the entire universe -- from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to present day.

Cynthia Stokes Brown | The New Press, 2008 | Book

Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present

The first-ever college textbook on big history, this title focuses on the idea of increasing complexity and is structured, like the big history project courses, accordingly. Most of the second half explores human history; the final chapter looks to the future.

Eric Chaisson | Columbia University Press, 2007 | Book

Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos

Chaisson is one of the pioneers of big history, having taught such courses from an astronomer's point of view since the early 1980s. This is his telling of the big history story, showing how increasing complexity is sustained by increasing energy flows.

Fred Spier | Wiley-Blackwell, 2011 | Book

Big History and the Future of Humanity

Spier has taught big history in Amsterdam since the mid-1990s. He has a background in biochemistry as well as in anthropology, so has the perfect training for thinking about the field. In this book, he develops the ideas of Eric Chaisson and explores the important notion of 'Goldilocks conditions,' showing how complexity appears only in very special places in the universe, where the conditions were 'just right.'

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International Big History Association

The IBHA has an exhaustive list of references and resources related to big history.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn about 13.7 billion years of shared history via a Big History course.

Organize a Big History lesson for students.