This Fleeting World Review Essay

An agricultural society is where humans settle in one spot and focus on particular economic, political, and religious goals and activities and most people are farmers production of food is the number 1 economic activity. Agriculture soon spread to India, North America, Europe over a period of 2000 to 3000 years.The revolution allowed people to settle permanently in an area. Was not all good because concentrated populations encouraged spread of contagious

“Human History at last took off around 50,000 years ago, at the time of what I have termed our Great Leap Forward. (Page 39)

Some people agree to the fact that the period of 1450-1750 is Late Agrarian Era. But I don’t. I believe that 1450-1750, from now on referred to as ‘periodization four’, is an Early Modern Era. This is the period of when the British explore North America, slave trade from Africa to America was born, and the great Columbian exchange initiated. This certainly could not be considered “Late Agrarian” with all the technologies being invented and explorations beginning. The reason I consider this time period Early Modern is for several reasons; globalization had kick started, stronger states were forming with more modern edges, and technology that had never before been seen was now around.

This Fleeting World takes about two hundred and fifty thousand years worth of history and compacts it into a one hundred and twenty page book. I believe Christian did a stellar job of doing so. Although short, it is very rich in knowledge about how our world came to be. His points are powerful and well put. This book definitely stands out in all the black and whiteness of history books. This fleeting world ties the start of humanity, to current life very efficiently.

This Fleeting World is a small summary of ‘big history’. David Christian’s book is a mere 92 pages long with an included 9-page prequel (on topics during the first years without humans such as Earth’s creation and more) and 16-page appendix on the book’s use in school, historical periodization, and a 4-page list of sources. With around 120 pages, this short book seems to be the perfect size to represent how our species’ history is only miniscule fraction compared to the history of that around us. In a world that has been around for over four and a half billion years old (6) in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old (1), homo sapiens have been around for only approximately 250,000 of those years (9). It seems impossible, though, to fit those hundreds of thousands of years into the modest text. However, Christian does the impossible and makes a well written short ‘big history’. Where many other historians before him have failed at making one, Christian’s book, This Fleeting World, summarizes history from the big-bang all

Humanity adapted to agriculture in the Neolithic Era; man began to plant crops instead wandering around and gathering. Farming made it easier for humans to control their food supply. Another impact to adapting to agriculture, was that it made people decide to settling down permanently, which led to the creation of villages. Furthermore,

Christian also provides each era with an introduction. In the Era of Foragers, Christian begins with a description about foragers along with a list of multiple fields of science that historians use to learn about the era of foragers. Next, there’s an introduction of how humans first were, how they started to spread around the world, and how they lived. In the Agrarian Era, the author begins with the Origins of Agriculture, since agriculture was a big influence to the agrarian era. Afterwards, he writes about the progressive changes from foragers to agriculture, the changes from villages to cities/states, and the steady advancement in technology and governments. In the Modern Era, he begins with the Major Features and Trends of the Modern Era along with the changes from agrarian societies to the modern world. Then, he writes a brief description about the Industrial Revolution, economic/cultural changes, Twentieth Century Crisis, and finishes with the Contemporary Period. All types of people ranging from high school students to professors and even world historians will find this book intriguing since it offers readers a short “long history”. He sets up this

Response- Humans started agriculture in the Neolithic time. When humans found out that they can plant they started to evolve. More ideas started to grow and finally humans figured out that they can make technology people switched from farming to making things and trading for new stuff .which caused the change in human lifestyles.

When writing This Fleeting World: a Short Story of Humanity, David Christian tries to keep the idea of " Big history" in mind and tried to avoid the tunnel vision created by separating political, economic, social and other kinds of history, which he does by writing a concise account of world history starting from the Big Bang and ending at present day. David Christian made his argument credible by giving reliable information. The book started out with a 15 page preface written by Bob Bain and Lauren McArthur Harris. This was very helpful as it explained how this book can be used by history teachers and student

Humans have always had to find a way to survive in the changing environment of our world. Humans have had to find many ways to adapt and find different practices to feed their communities. Humans were able to keep their communities alive due to their ways of hunting and gathering. Gender played a role in this way of finding food source. Men were set to be the hunters and the women were responsible for gathering any crops they could find. There was a transition that occurred and a new way of cultivating food emerged. Agriculture became a way of survival for human beings. Agriculture played an intricate role in providing a food source and it had a major impact on the Neolithic societies in the Near East. It provided a new way for society to be permanently transformed from what they once were, hunter gatherers to becoming something more stable and stronger.

The Neolithic Era may be one of the most important eras. It marked the start of agriculture and paved a path for the upcoming civilizations. This generation brought advantages, but it also had its drawbacks. Relatively this era was centered around the upbringing of agriculture. This era contained many shifts throughout the years.

In the book, ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’, the author, Bill Bryson attempts to explain widely researched topics in the simplest way possible, so that a reader, whether from a science background or not will understand and marvel at theories revolving around how the universe was created, what living things are made of, what causes natural disasters and so on. He uses amusing language and perspicuous analogies, making the book truly a pleasure to read. As a young boy in the fourth or fifth grade, captivated by the illustrations in his science text book he ended up deciding science was supremely dull because the book was not as exciting as he anticipated and did not answer many of the questions that the illustrations stirred up in him. As an adult, he embarked upon a quest to understand the marvel and wonder that we know as life on planet Earth, and explain it to others such that, in his own words,”. The idea was to see if it isn’t possible to understand and appreciate…the wonders and accomplishments of science at a level that isn’t too technical or demanding, but isn’t superficial either.” Bill Bryson has truly accomplished that in simple, entertaining, and in many

The movie “History of the World in 2 Hours” shifted my perspective on time; however, my perspective on culture did not shift, considering I have already been educated on the evolution of culture. After the film, I have become aware of how long humans lived on earth. It is astonishing to ruminate that humans only owned and occupied a small portion of history. Alex Filippenko simplified the understanding of the human’s civilization short time period by fracturing earth’s time to 14 years. He explained that earth’s complete formation would have been in 5 years, dinosaurs would have been extinct in 3 weeks, and the entire human history would have only been the last 3 minutes. Therefore, my perspective of the world’s history, humans was only the

The ability to tie together everything that has happened since the Big Bang and modern day humanity is not shared by many university history courses. Big History does this and does it well by incorporating “findings from cosmology, Earth and life sciences, and human history” (Christian, Brown & Benjamin 2013, p. XV). Two of the most important themes of Big History is the story of how humanity arrived on the earth and how the smallest things in each others lives bounds humanity to one another and to the universe within which it finds itself. This essay breaks down Big History’s overview of the beginning of life as well as combining the pieces together for a commodity that ties all of humanity together: Gum.

From the beginning of the universe to what society has evolved into today consists of a huge span of time. Big History is the broad yet complex study of the history of everything - from the emergence of the universe, the birth of stars, the first planets, evolution of humans, and more. The concepts of Big History is divided into thresholds of increasing complexity. Each threshold has a unique complexity different from the other thresholds. In order to move on to a new threshold, there must be a new component of complexity that is introduced. Everything is world has a relationship with the universe whether it be a human or a piece of clothing. For my “Big History” paper, I chose to compare my Wenger Swiss Military watch to the thresholds in big history because it was a gift from my grandfather and has sentimental value. Additionally, my watch is something I wear every day; it would be interesting to view my watch in the context of the eight thresholds of Big History.