A great historian can make clear the connections between the first Homo sapiens and today's version of the species, and a great storyteller can make those connections come alive. David Christian is both, and This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity makes the journey - from the earliest foraging era to our own modern era - a fascinating one. Enter This Fleeting World - and give up the preconception that anything old is boring.

This is an interpretative history of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union between 1850 and 1991. During this tumultuous period, the countries of this vast area were transformed from traditional, agrarian societies into modern industrial states. Like China, the Soviet Union underwent this transition under the banner of communism. After introductory chapters on traditional Russian history and lifeways, David Christian discusses how these transformations affected both governments and ordinary citizens, what they gained, what they endured, and why the Communist experiment ultimately failed.

'David Christian's approach to understanding history can help all of us learn to prepare for the future' - Bill Gates A user's guide to the future: from the algorithms in DNA to why time is like a cocktail glass, interstellar migrations, transhumanism, the fate of the galaxy, and the last black hole... Every second of our lives - whether we're looking both ways before crossing the street, celebrating the birth of a baby, or moving to a new city - we must cope with an unknowable future by telling stories about what will happen next. Where is the future, the place where we set those stories? Can we trust our future stories? And what sort of futures do they show us? David Christian, historian and bestselling author of Origin Story, is renowned for pioneering the emerging discipline of Big History, which surveys the whole of the past. But with Future Stories, he casts his sharp analytical eye forward, offering an introduction to the strange world of the future, and a guide to what we think we know about it at all scales, from the predictive mechanisms of single-celled organisms and tomato plants to the merging of colossal galaxies billions of years from now. Drawing together science, history and philosophy from a huge range of places and times, Christian explores how we prepare for uncertain futures, including the future of human evolution, artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and more. By linking the study of the past much more closely to the study of the future, we can begin to imagine what the world will look like in the next hundred years and consider solutions to the biggest challenges facing us all.

A scholar among the laity, anonymous author "David Christian," in checking the text amongst the ordained, received positive feedback including the following: Ernie (38 years of church pastoral leadership) wrote, "Book is remarkable with more knowledge of biblical literature and history than most ministers including yours truly." Laurie (pastor of a small local church) offered "For your fun and engaging approach - abundant praise. And know that it's a fine book to use with small groups." Wayne (ordained seminary professor) calls it "a thesaurus of great reading, good thinking, and delightfully provocative writing." The goal of the book is to motivate saving the many Christian churches from themselves so that in unity the Church will motivate saving the world from itself. We don't have a lot of time.

This book presents the history of globalization as a network-based story in the context of Big History. Departing from the traditional historic discourse, in which communities, cities, and states serve as the main units of analysis, the authors instead trace the historical emergence, growth, interconnection, and merging of various types of networks that have gradually encompassed the globe. They also focus on the development of certain ideas, processes, institutions, and phenomena that spread through those networks to become truly global. The book specifies five macro-periods in the history of globalization and comprehensively covers the first four, from roughly the 9th - 7th millennia BC to World War I. For each period, it identifies the most important network-related developments that facilitated (or even spurred on) such transitions and had the greatest impacts on the history of globalization. By analyzing the world system's transition to new levels of complexity and connectivity, the book provides valuable insights into the course of Big History and the evolution of human societies.

It's been a church, a mosque and a synagogue. Jesus is said to have dined there. James, his brother, is believed to have been interred there. King David may be buried beneath the floor. The subject of intense speculation by both scholars and the faithful, the Cenacle on Mount Zion-also known as the Upper Room of the New Testament gospels and as the Tomb of David-has remained a mystery for centuries. Claimed by Jews, Christians and Muslims, the sacred structure continues to evoke passionate controversy. Does it date back to the time of Christ? Was the Last Supper celebrated there? Is this the place where the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on the first Pentecost following Easter Sunday? Did King David's remains ever lie there? These and many other questions are explored in this first-ever study, offering a readable, fully researched narrative account of the Cenacle's history, archaeology and imagery. Artistic, architectural and photographic illustrations document the Cenacle and its surroundings over the past 1,500 years.

The breadth of the human experience We quite rightly celebrate human creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, but too often our triumphs in science, engineering and technology come at monumental cost. The human story is more often a tale of conflict and despair than of nurture, love, and coexistence. It would be easy to read the human story as one of tragic hubris. Yet it does not end here. We stand on the threshold of the future wondering which way the dice will fall. Our wager with posterity is that human ingenuity, intelligence, and resilience of spirit are powerful enough to insist upon a very different future for the human story. Prix Pictet: Human features over 100 outstanding works of contemporary photography by many of the world’s most acclaimed photographers.

Volume 1 of the Cambridge World History is an introduction to both the discipline of world history and the earliest phases of world history up to 10,000 BCE. In Part I leading scholars outline the approaches, methods, and themes that have shaped and defined world history scholarship across the world and right up to the present day. Chapters examine the historiographical development of the field globally, periodisation, divergence and convergence, belief and knowledge, technology and innovation, family, gender, anthropology, migration, and fire. Part II surveys the vast Palaeolithic era, which laid the foundations for human history, concentrating on the most recent phases of hominin evolution, the rise of Homo sapiens and the very earliest human societies through to the end of the last ice age. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historical linguists and historians examine climate and tools, language, and culture, as well as offering regional perspectives from across the world.

Bread and Salt - a literal translation of the Russian word for hospitality - explores the social and economic implications of eating and drinking in Russia in the thousand years before 1900. Eating and drinking are viewed here as social activities which involves the economics of production, storage and distribution of food stuffs. These activities attract both social controls and state taxation; in this way the everyday process of eating and drinking is linked with the history of Russia. The dominance of grain in the diet throughout the period and the importance of salt, as implied in the title, are dealt with, as are the early Russian beer-drinking fraternities. The relatively late introduction of spirits, in the from of vodka, and it disastrous consequences in social terms are described. Tea and the samovar, also much more a latecomer than is generally realized, did little to diminish excessive drinking. Drinking, in any event, was by no means discourage by the state, since it was a major source of state income. The final section of the book looks at rural diets in the nineteenth century, when some variation and new items, such as the potato, became important. At the same time, peasants depended basically on the grain crop, as they had for thousands of years. Forced by txation to enter the market, afflicted by severe famines towards the end of the century, many peasants ate and drank no better as a result of the modernization of the county.

An introduction to a new way of looking at history, from a perspective that stretches from the beginning of time to the present day, "Maps of Time "is world history on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings.
Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies--all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." "Maps of Time "opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting 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--true as never before to its name.

'David Christian's approach to understanding history can help all of us learn to prepare for the future' - Bill Gates A user's guide to the future: from the algorithms in DNA to why time is like a cocktail glass, interstellar migrations, transhumanism, the fate of the galaxy, and the last black hole... Every second of our lives - whether we're looking both ways before crossing the street, celebrating the birth of a baby, or moving to a new city - we must cope with an unknowable future by telling stories about what will happen next. Where is the future, the place where we set those stories? Can we trust our future stories? And what sort of futures do they show us? David Christian, historian and bestselling author of Origin Story, is renowned for pioneering the emerging discipline of Big History, which surveys the whole of the past. But with Future Stories, he casts his sharp analytical eye forward, offering an introduction to the strange world of the future, and a guide to what we think we know about it at all scales, from the predictive mechanisms of single-celled organisms and tomato plants to the merging of colossal galaxies billions of years from now. Drawing together science, history and philosophy from a huge range of places and times, Christian explores how we prepare for uncertain futures, including the future of human evolution, artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and more. By linking the study of the past much more closely to the study of the future, we can begin to imagine what the world will look like in the next hundred years and consider solutions to the biggest challenges facing us all.

David Christian, creator of Big History ('My favourite course of all time' Bill Gates), brings us the epic story of the universe and our place in it, from 13.8 billion years ago to the remote future 'Nails home the point: Life is a miracle ... A compelling history of everything' Washington Post 'Spectacular' Carlo Rovelli 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. 'Rather like the Big Bang, the book is awe-inspiring ... Superb' The Times 'With fascinating ideas on every page and the page-turning energy of a good thriller, this is a landmark work' Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element

This is a study of the social, economic, and political role of Vodka in nineteenth-century Russia. Since the `Green Serpent' first appeared in sixteenth-century Muscovy, it has played a vital part in Russian life. Vodka became an essential part of Russian working-class celebrations: personal, religious, and commercial. Trade in Vodka redistributed wealth upwards through Russian society over several centuries. Indeed, Russia's status as a great power was underpinned by it: by the nineteenth century, it generated one-third of government revenue - enough to cover most of the costs of the vast army. The dependence on Vodka of both people and state has endured into the Gorbachev era. But despite Vodka's key role in Russian history, and the complex network of corruption associated with it, the subject has been ignored by most historians until now. This study concentrates on an important transitional era in the history of Vodka: the early nineteenth century. During this period, Vodka taxes played the role that salt taxes had played in the ancien regime in France. The abolition of the tax farm in 1863 should be seen as one of the most important of the `Great Reforms' of the 1860s, an era which, in many ways, parallels the glasnost of the 1980s.

'David Christian's approach to understanding history can help all of us learn to prepare for the future' - Bill Gates A user's guide to the future: from the algorithms in DNA to why time is like a cocktail glass, interstellar migrations, transhumanism, the fate of the galaxy, and the last black hole... Every second of our lives - whether we're looking both ways before crossing the street, celebrating the birth of a baby, or moving to a new city - we must cope with an unknowable future. How do we do this? And how do we, like most living organisms, manage this impossible challenge quite well (at least most of the time)? David Christian, historian and bestselling author of Origin Story, is renowned for pioneering the emerging discipline of Big History, which surveys the whole of the past. But with Future Stories, he casts his sharp analytical eye forward, offering an introduction to the strange world of the future, and a guide to what we think we know about it at all scales, from the predictive mechanisms of single-celled organisms and tomato plants to the merging of colossal galaxies billions of years from now. Drawing together science, history and philosophy from a huge range of places and times, Christian explores how we prepare for uncertain futures, including the future of human evolution, artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and more. By linking the study of the past much more closely to the study of the future, we can begin to imagine what the world will look like in the next hundred years and consider solutions to the biggest challenges facing us all.