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In this thrilling history, David Baker captures the longest-possible time span-from the Big Bang to the present day-in an astonishingly concise retelling. His impressive timeline includes the "rise of complexity" in the cosmos and the creation of the first atoms; the origin of all galaxies, stars, and our solar system; and the evolution of life on Earth, from tiny single-celled organisms to human beings.
Weaving together insights across the sciences-including chemistry, physics, biology, archaeology, and anthropology-Baker answers the fundamental questions: How did time begin? Why does matter exist? What made life on Earth the way it is? He also argues that never before has life on Earth been forced to adjust to a changing climate so rapidly, nor has one species ever been responsible for such sudden change. Baker's grand view offers the clearest picture of what may come next-and the role we can still play in our planet's fate.
List of contents
Contents
Foreword by John Green
Introduction
Part One: The Inanimate Phase
The Big Bang
Stars, Galaxies, and Complexity
Origin of the Earth
Part Two: The Animate Phase
Life and Evolution
Explosions and Extinctions
Primate Evolution
Part Three: The Cultural Phase
Human Foragers
The Dawn of Agriculture
Agrarian States
The Unification of the World
The Anthropocene
Part Four: The Unknown Phase
The Near and Deep Future
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Image Credits
Index
About the author
David Baker is a history and science writer who holds the world's first PhD in Big History (the field that explores patterns in deep time and across the natural and social sciences). He is an award-winning lecturer, has written educational videos seen by millions of people, and is the author of
The Shortest History of Our Universe. He lives in Tropical North Queensland, Australia.
Summary
A journey across 13.8 billion years that distills a complete history of the universe from the mysterious and sudden birth of the cosmos to the rise of modern humans, and everything in between in an ultra-accessible, uncommonly illuminating, and thrillingly fast-paced chronicle of key events
