Literature and Works
to learn Big History

Ver. 2.0 January 24, 2017
Nobuo Tsujimura

Essential Materials

Christian, David (2011) “The history of our world in 18 minutes”, filmed on March 2011, at TED.

Cranston, Bryan narrator (2013 - 2014) “The Big History of Everything”, The final episode of the Season 1 of the Big History series on History Channel (2 hours).
 Amazon video (2013, final episode): "17. The Big History of Everything"
 DVDs + Digital (2014, full episodes)
 Blu-ray Discs + Digital (2014, full episodes)

Christian, David, Cynthia Stokes Brown and Craig Benjamin (2014) Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Spier, Fred (2015) Big History and the Future of Humanity, 2nd edition, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell (1st edition, 2010). See also its special site ( English / Spanish ).

Christian, David (1991) “The Case for ‘Big History’”, Journal of World History 2 (2): 223-8.

Christian, David (2010) “The Return of Universal History”, History and Theory 49, December: 6-27.

Supplementary Writings

Alvarez, Walter (2016) A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves, W.W.Norton & Company.

Bohan, Elise et al. authors, Rajeev Doshi et al. illustrators (2016) Big History, DK.

Brown, Cynthia Stokes (2016) Big History, Small World, Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire.

Brown, Cynthia Stokes (2012) Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present, 2nd edition, New York: The New Press (1st edition, 2007).

Bryson, Bill (2003) A Short History of Nearly Everything, London: Random House.

Chaisson, Eric (2005) Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos, New York: Columbia University Press.

Chaisson, Eric J. (2001) Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Christian, David (2011) Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, 2nd edition, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA : University of California Press (1st edition, 2004).

Christian, David (2007) This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity, Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire.

Christian, David et al. eds. (2011) Berkshire Essentials: Big History, Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire.

D'Efilippo, Valentina and James Ball (2013) The Infographic History of the World, Harper Collins.

Fukue, Jun (2013) Modern Cosmology: The Origins of the Universe and Celestial Objects, Tokyo: Kodansha (in Japanese).

Gilliland, Ben (2015) How to Build a Universe: From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe, Sterling.

Grinin, Leonid, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers and Andrey Korotayev eds. (2014) Teaching and Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field, Volgorad: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House.

Grinin, Leonid E. and Andrey V. Korotayev eds. (2015) Evolution: From Big Bang to Nanorobots, Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House.

Grinin, Leonid E. and Andrey V. Korotayev eds. (2013) Evolution: Development within Big History, Evolutionary and World-System Paradigms, Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House.

Grinin, Leonid E., Andrey V. Korotayev and Barry H. Rodrigue eds. (2011) Evolution: A Big History Perspective, Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House.

Grinin, Leonid E., Robert L. Carneiro, Andrey V. Korotayev and Fred Spier eds. (2011) Evolution: Cosmic, Biological and Social, Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House.

Institute for Global and Cosmic Peace ed. (2014) Big History and the 21st Century's International Order, Yokohama: Institute for Global and Cosmic Peace (in Japanese). The expanded and revised edition of Institute for Global and Cosmic Peace ed. (2014) An Introduction to Big History, Yokohama: Institute for Global and Cosmic Peace (in Japanese).

Kaifu, Norio (2003) Humanity in A History of the Universe: The Universe, Life and Humans, Tokyo: Kodansha.

Kaifu, Norio, Motonori Hoshi and Shigenori Maruyama eds. (2015) Life in the Universe, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press (in Japanese).

Lloyd, Christopher (2008) What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life, and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Matsui, Takafumi (2003) A Living Way of Cosmic Being: An Invitation to Astrobiology, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

Motokawa, Tatsuo (2015)　Biodiversity: Evolution, Transmission and Ecosystems Considered from "Myself", Tokyo: Chuokoron-shinsha (in Japanese).

Motokawa, Tatsuo (2011)　A Biological Critique on Civilization, Tokyo: Shinchosha (in Japanese).

Nakamura, Keiko (2016) Explaining Biohistory with Picture Scrolls and a Mandala, Tokyo: Seidosha (in Japanese).

Nakamura, Keiko (2014) What Is Biohistory, Tokyo: Kodansha (in Japanese), first appeared as Nakamura, keiko (2000) The World of Biohistory, Tokyo: Nippon Hoso Shuppan Kyokai (the present NHK publishing) (in Japanese).

Nakanishi, Osamu editor in chief (2016) Applying Big History: Nature, War and Peace, Yokohama: Institute for Global and Cosmic Peace (basically in Japanese with the Chinese and English originals).

Nakanishi, Osamu and Nobuo Tsujimura (2016) “Universal Studies and Big History in Japan” in Rodrigue, Grinin and Korotayev eds., From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations, Volume II, Education and Understanding: 289-294.

Nazaretyan, Akop (2015) “Mega-Evolution and Big History” in Rodrigue, Grinin and Korotayev eds., From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations, Volume I, Our Place in the Universe: 125-143.

Назаретян, А. П. (2014) «Нелинейное будущее. Мегаисторические, синергетические и культурно-психологические предпосылки глобального прогнозирования» 2-е издание, Москва: АРГАМАК-МЕДИА.

Reeves, Hubert, Joël de Rosnay, Yves Coppens et Dominique Simonnet (1995) La plus belle histoire du monde: Les secrets de nos origines, Paris: Seuil.

Rodrigue, Barry H. (2016) “Applied Big History: Social Meanings, Social Needs” in Nakanishi editor in chief Applying Big History: 38-52.

Rodrigue, Barry (2015) “A New Design for Living” in Rodrigue, Grinin and Korotayev eds., From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations, Volume I, Our Place in the Universe: 183-7.

Rodrigue, Barry (2011) “A Big History Directory, 2011”, Universal Studies/Big History website, first appeared as Rodrigue, Barry and Daniel Stasko (2009) “A Big History Directory, 2009: An Introduction”, World History Connected, 6 (3), October 2009.

Rodrigue, Barry, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev (2015) “Introduction: From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations―An Introduction to Big History” in Rodrigue, Grinin and Korotayev eds., From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations, Volume I, Our Place in the Universe: 1-16.

Rodrigue, Barry, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev eds. (2015) From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations: Big History Anthology, Volume I, Our Place in the Universe: An Introduction to Big History, Delhi: Primus Books.

Rodrigue, Barry, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev eds. (2016) From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations: Big History Anthology, Volume II, Education and Understanding: Big History around the World, Delhi: Primus Books.

Simon, Richard B., Mojgan Behmand and Thomas Burke eds. (2014) Teaching Big History, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Spier, Fred (1996) The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Tachibana, Takashi (1985) Return from Space, Tokyo: Chuokoronsha (in Japanese).

Tachibana, Takashi and Katsuhiko Sato et al. (authors), National Institute of Natural Sciences, Japan (editor) (2012) 9 Issues on Extra-Terrestrial Life: The Possibility of Existence Considered from the Latest Research, Tokyo: Kodansha (in Japanese).

Wada, Sumio (2004) Natural History from the Birth of the Universe to the Creation of the Human Scoiety: Nine Evolutions in Fourteen Billion Years, Tokyo, Beret Publishing (in Japanese).

Timelines, Maps and Digital Tools

Alvarez, Walter and Roland Saekow co-founders (2013) ChronoZoom 2.0 (Big History's zoomable timeline), Outercurve Foundation, created by the collaboration among University of California, Berkeley, Microsoft Research, Moscow State University and University of Washington.

Evogeneao (n.d.) Tree of Life Explorer (An interactive tree of life), Evogeneao.

The Japan Foundation of Public Communication on Science and Technology (2013) Diagram of Our Universe 2013 (Interactive tool to learn the history of the universe), released on the website of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (1st edition, 2007).

Miyama, Shoken and Eiichiro Kokubo (2011) Cosmic Atlas, Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Publications (in Japanese).

Ogg, James G., Gabi Ogg and Felix M. Grandstein (2008) The Concise Geologic Time Scale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Special Issues of Academic Journals

Global History Review, 6, the Special Issue, "Big History and Global History", Beijing: Global History Center, Capital Normal University, December, 2013

Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History (present Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution), 2 (1), University of California, Riverside, 2011.

Social Evolution & History, 4 (1), the Special Issue, Exploring the Horizons of Big History, Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House, March 2005.

Interviews and Conversations

“We Need A Modern Origin Story: A Big History―A Conversation With David Christian”, Edge, May 21, 2015.

“Big History: Writing World History from the Perspective of Cosmic Evolution”, Guangming Daily, March 29, 2012. The conversation among David Christian, Fred Spier, Akop Nazaretyan and Sun Yue, hostd by Bao Jieping (in Chinese).

Free Online Courses

Alvalez, Walter (2011) "Big History: Cosmos, Earth, Life, Humanity", University of California, Berkeley.

Baker, David originator (2014 - 2015) CrashCourse, Big History (a part of BHP).

Christian, David and David Baker (2015 - ) "Big History: Connecting Knowledge" (the MOOC course), Macquarie University.

Chrisitan, David and Bill Gates co-founders Big History Project (BHP).

Korea Center for Digital Humanities at SMU (2015 - 2016) "[GMC] Big History" (the MOOC course), Korea Center for Digital Humanities, Sookmyung Women's University (in Korean).

Quaedackers, Esther (2016 - ) "Big History: From the Big Bang until Today" (the MOOC course), University of Amsterdam (Coursera / YouTube).

Courses and TV Programs
on DVD/Blu-ray Disc

Benjamin, Craig G. (2016) The Big History of Civilizations, Video/Audio/DVD/CD, The Great Courses, The Teaching Company.

Christian, David (2008) Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity, 8 DVDs, The Great Courses, The Teaching Company.

Cranston, Bryan narrator (2013 - 2014) BIG HISTORY, Amazon Video/3 DVDs/Blu-ray Discs, A+E Networks, Lionsgate (broadcast on History Channel).

Multimedia Art

Björk (2011 - 2014) Biophilia Project. See also Biophilia Educational Project.

Movies

Swimme, Brian Thomas and Mary Evelyn Tucker (2011) Journey of the Universe: An Epic Story of Cosmos, Earth, and Human Transformation, Northcut Productions.

Dramas

STAR TREK series

Animations

Dunbar, James Lu (2014) The Universe Verse Video: A Rhyming Graphic Guide To Our Origins, Berkeley, CA: James & Kenneth Publishers.

Comic Art

Dunbar, James Lu (2014) The Universe Verse, Berkeley, CA: James & Kenneth Publishers.

Tezuka, Osamu (2003-2008) Phoenix, 12 vols, translated by Dadakai, San Francisco, CA: VIZ Media.

Picture Books

Burton, Virginia Lee (1962) Life Story: The Story of Life on Our Earth from Its Beginning up to Now, Houghton Miffin.

Curtis, Wendy (2014) The Biggest Picture: From the Big Bang to the Development of the Big Bang Theory, GeoBook Studio.

Gronek, Erika (2010) And Then There Was You…, San Francisco: Blurb.com/ Raleigh, North Carolina: Lulu.com.

Jeffers, Susan painter (1991) Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A message from Chief Seattle, New York: Puffin Books.

Marshal, James (1998) Goldilocks and the Three Bears, New York: Puffin Books.

Morgan, Jennifer author, Danna Lyne Andersen illustrator (2002) Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story, Book 1 (The Universe Sereies), Dawn Publications

Morgan, Jennifer author, Danna Lyne Andersen illustrator (2003) From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story, Book 2 (The Universe Sereies), Dawn Publications

Morgan, Jennifer author, Danna Lyne Andersen illustrator (2006) Mammals who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story, Book 3 (The Universe Sereies), Dawn Publications

Poetry

JAXA producer (2008 - 2009) Space Poem Chain, Vol.3.

Sakaki, Nanao (2010) Footprints of Kokopelli: Nanao Sakaki's Anthology 1955-2005, Tokyo: Shichosha (in Japanese).

Paintings

Gogh, Vincent van (1888) “Starry Night over the Rhone”, Musée d'Orsay. The reason why it is "big historical".

Photographs

Causutt, Sandro and Markus Casutt (2014 - ) Cosmic Art Photography.

Music

Mitchell, Joni (1970) “Woodstock” in Ladies of the Canyon. The reason why it is "big historical".