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Maps of Time is world history on
an unprecedented scale. An ambitious overview of the emerging
field of "big history," it introduces a new way
of looking at history: from a perspective that stretches
from the beginning of time to the present day. David Christian
views the interaction of the natural world from the Big
Bang through the more recent arrivals of flora and fauna,
including human beings.
Cosmology, geology, archeology, population,
and environmental studies all figure in David Christian's
account. Maps of Time opens with the origins of the
universe -- of the stars and the galaxies, of the sun and
the solar system, including Earth -- and conducts readers
through the evolution of the planet before human habitation.
It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic
through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of
cities and states, and the birth of the modern industrial
period and hints at possible futures. Sweeping in scope,
yet finely focused in detail, this highly readable account
of the known world from the inception of space-time to the
prospects of global warming lays the groundwork for world
history -- and big history -- in a way that is true to its
name as never before.
David Christian is Professor in the Department
of History at San Diego State University. He is the author
of Living Water: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve
of Emancipation (1990); Imperial and Soviet Russia:
Power, Privilege and the Challenge of Modernity (1997);
and A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia:
Volume I: Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire
(1998).
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