The Historiography of Big History

Big History did not spring from out of some historical vacuum. It is a continuation of the great historiographical tradition of universal history, which in its written form dates back to Classical Greece and Han China, and in its oral form to the earliest human communities.  The defining elements of universal history – the oral creation myth, attempts to write a ‘single reckoning of past events’ (as Diodorus Siculus put it), the identification of key themes that run through the confusing morass of world history, and the historicization of science – are at the intellectual heart of Big History today.  Like its predecessors, Big History uses intensive interdisciplinary research and the most advanced historical and scientific knowledge to unfold the story of the evolution of the cosmos, and of the place of humans within.  Because of the extraordinary scientific breakthroughs that have occurred since the 1960s, particularly the discovery of evidence for the Big Bang theory, the solar nebula theory of the formation of stars and solar systems, the principles of plate tectonics, genetic evidence for evolution, and the techniques of radiometric dating, big historians are now equipped with the knowledge and tools to write the most accurate creation story ever devised. 

This paper charts the historiographical evolution of big history across several millennia, locating both its philosophy and methodology in the great tradition of universal history.  The paper concludes by arguing that, given the scale of problems and challenges facing humans in the present and future, both history and the sciences will inevitably move in the direction of Big History, which Bruce Mazlish neatly notes, is a ‘testament to the human desire to know the whole of the past, envisioned in one sweeping vision, overleaping the limited and limiting boundaries humans have sought to place on the earth.’