I’m a science researcher and writer living in London. My research field is astrobiology and the possibility of life on other planets – it brings together lots of different areas of science with engineering and space exploration and so is deeply ‘interdisciplinary’. And as a science writer, I try to bring this same broad perspective and unifying approach to other profound questions. My fascination with understanding our own origins was sparked by my childhood growing up in East Africa, the cradle of humanity. In Origins I explored different ways that planet Earth has influenced our human story across the millennia - it’s an example of ‘Big History’.
I wrote...
Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History
By
Lewis Dartnell
What is my book about?
When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, revolutions, and technological advances. But how has the Earth itself determined our destiny? How has our planet made us? Geological forces drove our evolution in East Africa; mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece; and today voting behaviour in the United States follows the bed of an ancient sea. The human story is the story of these forces, from plate tectonics and climate change, to atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.
Explore through millennia of human history, and billions of years into our planet’s past, to see the vast web of connections that underwrites our modern world - the ultimate origin story.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years
By
Jared Diamond
Why this book?
Guns. Germs and Steel is an absolutely thrilling ride through world history in pursuit of the deepest answers to the question: why was it that European powers came to dominate those of the Americas from the sixteenth century, and not vice versa. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and is a cracking example of what has come to be known as ‘Big History’.
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The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History
By
J.R. McNeill,
William H. McNeill
Why this book?
The historian William McNeill studied the effects on world history of diseases and contact between different civilizations; ideas which have been hugely influential on other books such as Guns, Germs and Steel (above). In this book, he teams up with his son John, to deliver one of the best overviews of the grand themes and trends within human history that I’ve read.
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Prisoners of Geography, 1: Ten Maps That Explain Everything about the World
By
Tim Marshall
Why this book?
Tim Marshall has had a long and illustrious career in journalism as a foreign correspondent and Prisoners of Geography absolutely sparkles with his fascinating insights and clarity of thought. How have the development and fate of modern nations been defined by their locale? This is Big History lapping right up to the newspaper headlines of today.
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A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves
By
Walter Alvarez
Why this book?
This is a much lesser-known book than the others I’ve picked, and I feel it deserves a load more attention. Walter Alvarez was instrumental to the development of the theory that the dinosaurs were wiped-out by an asteroid impact. Here, he casts his professor-of-geology eye across the whole of Earth’s history to show us the astonishing ways that our world – and the cosmos around us – have nurtured life on the planet and influenced the human story.
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Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History
By
David Christian
Why this book?
Few thinkers have done more to advance and popularize the discipline of Big History in recent years than David Christian. He coined the term and has worked with Bill Gates to deliver Big History teaching to high school students around the world. The book I’ve picked out here is a little more academic and detailed than the others, and provides a really solid overview of this approach to integrating large-scale history from the Big Bang to the present.
