A Big History of Everything from the Big Bang * to the first Stars, to our Solar system, life on Earth, dinosaurs * Homo * Sapiens, * agriculture, * an ice age, empires, fossil fuels, * a Moon landing and mass globalization. * And What happens next......

This is the epic story of the universe and our place in it, from 13.8 billion years ago to the remote future.
How did we get from the Big Bang to today's staggering complexity, in which seven billion humans are connected into networks powerful enough to transform the planet? And why, in comparison, are our closest primate relatives reduced to near-extinction?

Big History creator David Christian gives the answers in a mind-expanding cosmological detective story told on the grandest possible scale. He traces how, during eight key thresholds, the right conditions have allowed new forms of complexity to arise, from stars to galaxies, Earth to homo sapiens, agriculture to fossil fuels. This last mega-innovation gave us an energy bonanza that brought huge benefits to mankind, yet also threatens to shake apart everything we have created.

This global origin story is one that we could only begin to tell recently, thanks to the underlying unity of modern knowledge. Panoramic in scope and thrillingly told, Origin Story reveals what we learn about human existence when we consider it from a universal scale.

Contents

Preface
Introduction
Timeline

PART I : COSMOS
Chapter 1 In the Beginning : Threshold 1
Chapter 2: Stars and Galaxies : Thresholds 2 and 3
Chapter 3 Molecules and Moons : Threshold 4

PART II BIOSPHER

Chapter 4 Life : Threshold 5
Chapter 5 Little Life and the Biosphere
Chapter 6. Big Life and the Biosphere

PART III : US

Chapter 7 : Humans : Threshold 6
Chapter 8 : Farming : Threshold 7
Chapter 9. Agrarian Civilizations
Chapter 10. On the Verge of Todays World
Chapter 11 The Anthropocene : Threshold 8

Part IV : The Future

chapter 12 Where Is It all Going ?

Acknowledgements
Appendix : Statistics on Human History
Glossary Further Reading
Notes
Index