Origin Story

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...

"I have long been a fan of David Christian. In "Origin Story", he elegantly weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historical disciplines into a single, accessible historical narrative."
Bill Gates

Most historians study the smallest silver of time. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the Big Bang through the present day - and even beyond? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth and our very existence?

Preface
Introduction
Timeline
Cosmos

• In the Beginning: Threshold
• Stars and Galaxies: Thresholds 2 and 3
• Molecules and Moons: Threshold 4

Biosphere

• Life: Threshold 5
• Little Life and the Biosphere
• Big Life and the Biosphere

Us

• Humans: Threshold 6
• Farming: Threshold 7
• Agrarian Civilizations
• On the Verge of Today's World
• The Anthropocence: Threshold

The Future

• Where is it all going?

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