Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
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David Christian (Author), Jamie Jackson (Narrator), Recorded Books (Publisher)
4.4 out of 5 stars 692 ratings
A captivating history of the universe - from before the dawn of time through the far reaches of the distant future.
Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day - and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence?
These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History", the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In Origin Story, Christian takes readers on a wild ride through the entire 13.8 billion years we've come to know as "history".
By focusing on defining events (thresholds), major trends, and profound questions about our origins, Christian exposes the hidden threads that tie everything together - from the creation of the planet to the advent of agriculture, nuclear war, and beyond. With stunning insights into the origin of the universe, the beginning of life, the emergence of humans, and what the future might bring, Origin Story boldly reframes our place in the cosmos.
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Listening Length 12 hours and 23 minutes
Author David Christian
Narrator Jamie Jackson
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Audible.com Release Date May 22, 2018
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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States
Matt Mansfield
5.0 out of 5 stars The Evolution of Our Collective Learning
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018
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If you enjoy traditional history in terms of investigation, analysis, and debate about specific events and people, you will likely not be satisfied by David Christian’s 2018 work, “Origin Story: A Big History of Everything”.
As the author, a historian with extensive teaching credentials at Macquarie University in Sydney, University of Vermont, San Diego State University, to name some, has pointed out: “… in a globally connected world, there are so many local origin stories competing for people’s trust and attention that they get in one another’s way.”
This is the impetus for Christian to write a “big history” from a much broader perspective of human experience and coincidently to co-found with Bill Gates of Microsoft origin, the Big History Project, a free online syllabus about this topic.
The premise of “Origin Story” is there is a relentless struggle between basic components of the universe: evolution of more complex structures and entropy, the general tendency of matter and energy to return to a simple, disorderly state. And humans are part of this process.
Presumably our capacity for collective learning with an evolved emphasis on precise copying and communication is a unique trait distinct from other living forms. Consequently, we are more self-aware and able to accept responsibility for our impact on the biosphere, for however long we will experience big life.
The author defines the rise of complexity in terms of ”thresholds”, or events when the flow of recorded or theorized experience gained complexity: birth of the universe; first stars glow; new elements created; our sun and solar systems form; earliest life on earth; earliest form of human species; end of last ice age and earliest signs of farming; fossil fuels revolution. The last and future threshold touches on the sustainability of a world order.
An imaginative twist to putting these thresholds and timeline in perspective is dividing the estimated number of years by 1 billion: the “big bang” was 13 years, 8 months ago, while the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 24 days ago, the Roman and Han empires 1 minute ago and the fossil-fuel revolution 6 seconds ago.
The book is divided into four sections: Cosmos; Biosphere; Us; The Future. The writing is conversational and comfortable to follow while providing a level of detail and terminology without overwhelming technicality.
Christian carefully reminds that several chance occurrences, besides the much-discussed “Goldilocks zone”, created opportunities for life, as we know it, to evolve. Geo-thermal core, plate tectonics, critical balancing between carbon, oxygen and other elements, the evolution of DNA beyond RNA, the role of prokaryotes – all are presented in fascinating detail.
One area the book might have explored more was the evolution of the pre-frontal lobe or cortex in the human brain. This is a more recent development and seems to be a major, if not decisive, distinction between humans and other species and a likely basis for self-awareness and consciousness.
As a complementary material for the first two sections, you might want to check out online NOVA’s “Australia’s the First 4 Billion Years’” four-part series that helps visualize some of Christian’s observations.
For the third section covering the rise and impact of complex human interactions beyond farming and hunting, the author references Samuel Noah Kramer’s 1963 work, “The Sumerians” (if it helps, here's the link to my Amazon review of Kramer’s work:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R37UB92YMPN1U3/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8).
In the same section he makes several important references to Thomas Picketty’s 2014 seminal work, “Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century”, to underscore the human and social impact of the rapid industrial development (again, if it helps, here's the link to my Amazon review of Piketty’s work:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3QGVI29BM4HI/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ) .
The last section about the future seems more focused as a response to today’s political and social events while leaving aside some of the potentially more impactful long-range human developments: artificial intelligence, mixed reality and quantum computing.
All told, “Origin Story” offers a refreshing way to see our human experience. It may also make you wonder whether, one way or another, as TS Eliot wrote in his 1925 poem, “The Hollow Men”, it will all come to end “not with a bang but a whimper.”
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76 people found this helpful
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Jack Hicks
5.0 out of 5 stars For those who seek wisdom and perspective
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2018
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“Origin Story, A Big History of Everything”, by David Christian, 2018 By any measure the last 75 years, in my lifetime, have seen the largest explosion of knowledge in Human history. For millennia humans have sought the wisdom of the gods; How the universe and humans came to be. I feel very fortunate to have witnessed this epochal achievement. Working as an engineer at the Cape I witnessed the first Pioneer spacecrafts and Apollo moon missions blast off. I sort of realized at the time that we were entering a new age of exploration and technological innovation, but I could have never imagined the discoveries yet to come; Billions of Galaxies discovered by the Hubble Space telescope, Black holes, Gravity waves, Robot vehicles roving on Mars, super computers in phones or the unlocking of the genetic blueprint of life. Almost every field from Astrophysics Physics, Quantum mechanics, Biology, Neurobiology, Genetics, Geology to Paleontology and Paleoanthropology has seen groundbreaking discoveries that have changed our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
Now comes an amazing new book that weaves this knowledge into a surprisingly readable 300-page narrative story of the universe for the last 13 billion years. Up till now to attain this updated knowledge you would have to read separate books or take separate courses in each of the above specialties. Christian takes us on an epochal journey from the first milliseconds of the big bang, the formation of atoms and elements to the structural formation of the universe. From there we are taken to the formation of chemical elements to the formation of the earth and the beginning of life in the form of single celled prokaryotes 3 billion years ago. Photosynthesis, Cyanobacteria, plate tectonics all play a role in making our planet unique in our solar system as the only place hospitable for life. Then evolve the Eukaryotes through a combining of more primitive cells to form a new type of oxygen breathing cell, which make all multicellular animals and us possible. With the evolution of large bodied animals comes the evolution of large brains and consciousness. With the appearance of humans comes sharing and generational transmission of information and technologies. This ability proves crucial to the development of globe changing events such as agriculture and the scientific revolution. Along the way to us there were all sorts of blind alleys, near miss encounters and apocalyptic disaster scenarios that didn’t completely play out just by good luck and serendipity. One such occurrence caused by volcanism, happened 70,000 years ago and brought the number of our species to just 10,000 individuals and almost to the brink of extinction. This makes our life and all life on earth as we see it now a miraculous and beautiful occurrence.
In a sense this book while conveying the history of the universe and human societies always emphasizes throughout the fact that energy flows, the laws of thermodynamics are the fundamental factors operating in the physical universe, biological systems and human civilizations. We learn “wealth never really consists of things; it consists of control over energy flows that make, move, mine and transform things”. Agrarian societies and empires could never bring wealth to a majority of the population because they could never produce enough surplus energy. They could only concentrate wealth in an elite ruling class of perhaps 10%-15% of the population. The discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels in the last 200 years, which are nothing more than reservoirs of ancient sunlight, has engendered a huge explosion in the energy, wealth available to human societies and made possible the almost sevenfold explosion of human population, middle classes and advanced western civilization. However, we learn here that the earth has undergone numerous mass extinctions caused by CO2 induced global warming, the last catastrophic one, over 50 million years ago called the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum that wiped out over 50% of all genera on earth. That event was caused by a huge explosion of volcanism emitted CO2. By burning fossil fuels and emitting huge quantities of CO2 in the same manner, are we at the beginning of just such an event? Christian emphasizes that we have reached a critical point in the evolution of life on earth where one species, us, now control the fate of our entire ecosystem. We can put into play our knowledge of how the universe works that we have assiduously garnered over the last several hundred years or we can ignore what we know, instead let greed and tribalism reign and plunge our planet into an unknown future of chaos and destruction where our very survival will be at risk. This must be one of the great turning points in history like the invention of agriculture or the discovery of fossil fuels where mankind has no choice but to utilize his innovative abilities and technologies to harness the sun’s energies directly. I don’t think I have ever encountered a book with more knowledge condensed into one place in such a readable form. You want wisdom and perspective? Read this! JACK
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Gary
5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough science
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018
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This is a great read! You certainly won’t get through it in one sitting, but it is worth the time. I love reading science books, so this was an easy, entertaining book from that perspective.
But this is a history book as well. A big-history book. It kept my attention for the majority of the time and I learned a lot, but I confess to skimming through a bit of the pre-farming history. I may revisit that later.
The last part of the book discusses possible human species futures - the good and bad anthropocene. Two promising documents are referenced - one from the United Nations. The other being the Paris Agreement. Of course, every reputable scientist today recognizes the tragedies of Trump. That’s my obvious comment as this author rightfully keeps his political and religious views out of the book.
I highly recommend this book to those who appreciate the scale of the cosmos and our very small part in its grand scheme.
23 people found this helpful
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tkeithlu
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit too simple, a bit too slick.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2018
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Mr. Christian tries to present a smooth history and rationale for human beings as we are today. It's a monumental task attempted by few others. He has rather to pick and choose among competing theories for any number of topics to make it all work, and unfortunately presents those theories as fact, without concern for the uncertainties. It's an engaging read, and would be fun to assign to an anthropology class just to see what arguments ensued.
19 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
Gazza
4.0 out of 5 stars Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2019
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I bought Origin Story on the basis that it would be an updated version of Hendrik van Loon’s classic history: The Story of Mankind. Personally, I think it doesn’t live up to that volume. For one, it doesn’t have the same wit and humour in the writing as Loon. Nor does it have the childish sketching that accompanies Loon’s work that I have grown so used to, which is something that makes his work so endearing.
Nonetheless, David Christian’s work is bang up to date with current science and knowledge and (like Loon’s ‘Story’) it reads particularly well.
I hope you find my review helpful.
8 people found this helpful
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J. Drew
5.0 out of 5 stars How we came to here,a fascinating tale of big history
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2020
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Most history books focus on recent events, military campaigns, kings and queens or political events. They also tend to focus only on events in the last 10,000 years or so. And most focus on events much more recently than that. What I loved about this book is that it starts with the moment the whole universe could be contained in a size less than the dot that finishes this sentence that began with all the light to the energy we needed to form a universe. The moment we now call the Big Bang occurred over 13 billion years ago. It uses this moment as the first threshold to explain the history of the origin of earth and moves through nine more thresholds to tell the story of how we got to here, right now. From this moment, it explains 4 forces including gravity, electromagnetic energy, and quantum mechanics that explain how everything comes together through simple laws of nature. But then explains how atoms work which then come together to form planets. And then 4 1/2 billion years ago, in a swirling dust cloud that formed our sun, shortly after all the planets of our solar system were born and we had the planet Earth. Then from planets and rocks, it then moves through life and mass extinctions (we’ve had at least 5 we know of - the last being the one to wipe out most of the dinosaurs [we still have some relatives of dinosaurs such as birds and chickens]). When it gets to Homo sapiens there is an Interesting moment when the human population was down to just a few ten thousand humans (enough to fill a moderate sized sports stadium) about 70,000 years ago. Our species came close to extinction, possible due to catastrophe that may have been triggered by a massive volcanic eruption on Mount Toba in Indonesia that pumped clouds of soot into the atmosphere, blocking photosynthesis for months or years and endangering many species. We survived and we now have 7.7billion people on the planet. However, all other species of upright ape have also become extinct. The threshold including timelines from billions of years and transformed into a 13 year time frame line to help us get an idea of the deep time is as follows (I always love using my arm to explain to people how much I would need to delete to wipe out the entire existence of humans who ever existed on this planet – it’s literally one swipe at a nail file across the nail of a finger of an outstretched arm or the removal of one layer of paint off the top of the Eiffel Tower):
THRESHOLD 1: Big bang: origin of our universe
13.8 billion years ago - 13 years, 8 months ago
THRESHOLD 2: The first stars begin to glow
13.2 (?) billion years ago - 13 years, 2 months ago
THRESHOLD 3: New elements forged in dying large stars
Continuously from threshold 2 to the present day
THRESHOLD 4: Our sun and solar system form
4.5 billion years ago - 4 years, 6 months ago
THRESHOLD 5: Earliest life on Earth
3.8 billion years ago - 3 years, 9 months ago
The first large organisms on Earth
600 million years ago - 7 months ago
An asteroid wipes oiit the dinosaurs
65 million years ago - 24 days ago
The hominin lineage splits from the chimp lineage
7 million years ago - 2.5 days ago
Homo erectus
2 million years ago - 17 hours ago
THRESHOLD 6; First evidence of our species, Homo sapiens
200,000 years ago - 100 minutes ago
THRESHOLD 7: End of last ice age, beginning of Holoceine, earliest signs of farming
10,000 years ago - 5 minutes ago
First evidence of cities, states, agrarian civilizations
5,000 years ago - 2.5 minutes ago
Roman and Han Empires flourish
2,000 years ago - 1 minute ago
World zones begin to be linked together
500 years ago - 15 seconds ago
THRESHOLD 8: Fossilfuels revoliition begins
200 years ago - 6 seconds ago
The Great Acceleration; humans land on the moon
50 years ago - 1.5 seconds ago
THRESHOLD 9 (?): The Future
A sustainable world order?
100 years in the future? - 3 seconds to go
The sun dies
4.5 billion years in the future - 4 years, 6 months to go
When it moves to the future, understanding the laws of nature to say what will happen to our planet and sun are easy to foretell. The mystery however, regarding the future, is it in the complexity and mystery of the nature of man. That is a much more difficult future to foretell. This is a wonderful book, and I look forward to thinking about this book a lot.
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Paul K.
5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to know everything about how we got here, this is the book to start with.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 1, 2019
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Origin Stories explains the Big Bang and keeps going. It’s the story of the ‘Goldilocks conditions’ needed to reach the 8 thresholds (Big Bang, stars, galaxies, molecules, life, humans, farming and the Anthropocene) that have defined our planet’s history. It makes me wonder at how we got here at all, whilst at the same time realising that ours is just one story within the unimaginable vastness of the universe. How many others might there be? In the introduction David says that as a child he could not make sense of things unless he could place them on some sort of map. This book is intended as the biggest map of them all, to provide a background timeline and context for everything that ever happened in our history. It’s big history. @bighistorypro @originstory #bighistory #booksthatfascinateme #booksiwantmykidstoread
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C Bridges
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2018
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A fascinating story brilliantly told. Will need to read it again as there is so much to take in.
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Mr O L Rogers
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2019
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Really good overview from the bing bang to the present.
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