A History of Big History - A/Prof Ian Hesketh

The History of Big History is a critical examination of a current trend in historical writing known as Big History, which is an approach that seeks to synthesize the history of all life in a singular and universal story, beginning with the Big Bang and ending with the present and future development of humanity itself. As well as examining the theory and practice of Big History, the book also considers Big History alongside previous largescale attempts to unite human and natural history, and includes comparative discussions of the practices of chronology, universal history, and the evolutionary epic. It argues that Big History relies on the same sense of history that motivated these earlier histories and similarly utilizes the same mythopoeic scientistic rhetoric to justify its truth claims. It is a narrative, moreover, that privileges necessity at the expense of contingency, often to the detriment of its chief message. The research for this project was provided by a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award.