Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (review)

This impressive book reflects wide reading in science and history, and a formidable scholarly digestive tract. The author has two fundamental goals in mind: first, to outline the big points of change in the experience of the universe, from big bang to the later twentieth century, with an intelligent, cautiously optimistic predictive chapter thrown in for good measure; second, to argue that in this huge span of time, big changes share certain basic attributes, whether the subject is the operation of gravity on the expanding universe, creating unexpected complexity out of chaos, or the operation of human interactions in early agricultural societies, creating new complexities in social organization.

About one-quarter of the book deals with the universe before the advent of humans, with an occasional digression, like Christian's discussion of early scientific accounts concerning the origin of the universe or the roots of modern geology. Stricter focus could have sharpened the argument. But these initial chapters form a stimulating treatment of post-big bang history, admirably accessible to a scientific layperson. Christian moves swiftly from the early stars to the emergence and evolution of life on earth, deploying useful analogies to make the immensities of time and space more manageable.

When the book turns to human experience, it starts with a deft summary and evaluation of human evolution. The book lingers on a mixture of landmarks, some more familiar than others. Christian's treatment of the advent of speech around 250,000 years ago discusses recent research that emphasizes the resultant new capacity for "collective learning." Agriculture represented huge change, eventually fostering the emergence of more complex societies. Viewing the agrarian period as a single 4,000-year span is stimulating and successful, the high point of the book. Christian provides a useful, imaginative sketch of the structures of agricultural civilization that relates easily with the fundamentals of state systems or social hierarchies. Nothing terribly surprising emerges, though the author's use of data on demographic change and individual examples of development drawn from selected monographs is instructive. His resolute focus on the big picture provides genuine insights as well as highlights, and can inform more conventional works on this vast historic past.

The final main section of the book deals with the "modern revolution" of the past 1,000 years, which turn out to mean 700 years of preparatory change, centered around growing commercialization—a bit teleological, but even a big book on big history has to get to the point—and then 300 years of more systematic developments centered around industrialization. The twentieth century fits within this schema as a massive, often uneasy acceleration of change. As befits a book beginning with developments in the physical universe, useful comments on major changes in the environment abound throughout, and the predictive conclusion dwells heavily on them.

Three questions about this extensive history are fair. First, is the prehuman science informative about, or at least suggestive of, historical patterns yet to come? The answer is "yes." Second, is the ability to float above familiar details—no mention of world wars in a page on intensifying conflict during the twentieth century, for instance—useful in emphasizing big systems and changes therein? The answer again is positive. Third, is the idea of comparability in the nature of change plausible and stimulating? This issue is debatable. The author is hardly alone in invoking chaos theory and social complexity, but this work is an expository rather than a theoretical exercise. (An appendix actually handles more of the argument than does the text.) Even the dynamic of time, though occasionally charted, is often obscured by descriptive detail, and the link between physical change and human change is more often asserted than truly explored.

Unavoidably, also, despite the sweep of the account, textures are inevitably left out. Christian hazards a few comments on individual civilizations, particularly China and Western Europe, but little comparison. Religion appears primarily as an appendage to statecraft. Does culture have no more place...