Big history: the emergence of a novel interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

'Big history' is a fresh approach to history that places human history within the wider framework of the history of the universe. In addition to telling the story of how everything has come to be the way it is, big history allows students from many different disciplines to become scientifically literate within a very short period of time. In this paper a brief overview of the approach taken by the course I have developed at the University of Amsterdam is placed within the wider context of the emerging field of big history. Based on energy and complexity studies, over the past dozen years major theoretical advances have been made that are now turning big history from a multidisciplinary into a truly interdisciplinary approach.