The Cambridge World History: Volume 1, Introducing World History, to 10,000 BCE

The Cambridge World History

by David Christian (Editor)

Volume 1 of the Cambridge World History is an introduction to both the discipline of world history and the earliest phases of world history up to 10,000 BCE. In Part I leading scholars outline the approaches, methods, and themes that have shaped and defined world history scholarship across the world and right up to the present day. Chapters examine the historiographical development of the field globally, periodisation, divergence and convergence, belief and knowledge, technology and innovation, family, gender, anthropology, migration, and fire. Part II surveys the vast Palaeolithic era, which laid the foundations for human history, concentrating on the most recent phases of hominin evolution, the rise of Homo sapiens and the very earliest human societies through to the end of the last ice age. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historical linguists and historians examine climate and tools, language, and culture, as well as offering regional perspectives from across the world.

Genres: History, World History, Prehistory, Nonfiction

516 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 30, 2015

About the author

David Gilbert Christian is an Anglo-American historian and scholar of Russian history notable for creating and spearheading an interdisciplinary approach known as Big History. He grew up in Africa and in England, where he earned his B.A. from Oxford University, an M.A. in Russian history from the University of Western Ontario, and a Ph.D. in 19th century Russian history from Oxford University in 1974.

He began teaching the first course in 1989 which examined history from the Big Bang to the present using a multidisciplinary approach with assistance from scholars in diverse specializations from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The course frames human history in terms of cosmic, geological, and biological history. He is credited with coining the term Big History and he serves as president of the International Big History Association.

Christian's best-selling Teaching Company course entitled Big History caught the attention of philanthropist Bill Gates who is personally funding Christian's efforts to develop a program to bring the course to high school students worldwide in part via the website http://www.bighistoryproject.com

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This first volume of the Cambridge World History limps on two legs: it provides a general introduction to the movement of World History, and an overview of human history up to approximately 10,000 years ago. As always with a work made by different authors, the level of the contributions is quite uneven and there are many overlaps and inconsistencies. For example, the method of dating: most authors use the BCE-notation (Before Common Era, corresponding to the Christian era), others the BP-notation (Before Present). Personally, I’m a fan of the latter, because the chronological distance to the period involved is so large that it is strange to take a fairly arbitrary date from about 2,000 years ago as a benchmark. And while we're at it, another oddity: none other than David Christian is the editor of this book; he is the father of the Big History (see Maps of Time and Origin Story) that fits human history into that of the universe in its entirety and thus takes the Big Bang as a starting point. But this World History only begins with the appearance of the homo sapiens, about 200.00 year ago.
Recommended reading, for sure (rating 2.5 stars), but with a few major issues. More about that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Sense of History]

Having already read quite something on World History and Prehistoric Times, in this review I focus on the aspects that were new and surprising to me, and that added something to my knowledge. The first part of this book focuses on World History. This relatively new branch in historiography is introduced in a dozen contributions by different authors. The article by Dominic Sachsenmaier in particular provides a good overview. Interesting additions to the global approach can be found in the contributions on human domestic life throughout history (by Marie Jo Maynes), on the relation with Gender History (by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks), and on migration (by Patrick Manning). David R. Northrup's article is a bold attempt to reduce all of human history to two global processes: a first long phase of divergence, and then from about 1500 onwards one of convergence; that view certainly is stimulating, but I feel that it is just a little too rough to be really useful. If you want to get a much more nuanced introduction to World History, I can refer you to the The Oxford Handbook of World History and - more specialized - to the work of Sebastien Conrad What Is Global History?.

The second part of this volume covers what has traditionally been labelled "prehistoric times” although the term has rightly fallen out of use, as if history only begins with writing. Curiously enough, this part is limited to the history of the current human species, the homo sapiens, which - as things stand today - appears on the scene somewhere around 200,000 before present. Within that limitation, as a reader, you certainly get a number of good introductions that are almost entirely oriented on a region, which is strange, given this book pretends to be a World History. Particularly striking are the 2 contributions by Christopher Ehret about Africa, in which he rather bluntly states that until 48,000 years ago human history was a purely African affair and that all the major innovations occurred before that period, and exclusively on African soil. Strange to see that eurocentrism has been traded for African exclusivism.

Which brings me to the biggest criticism of this book. It is noticeable that many authors contradict themselves on a few crucial points and situate and interpret certain trends in human evolution in a different way. Once again referring to Ehret: his rather firm emphasis on the great syntactic language evolution that, according to him, took place around 70,000 years ago, seems interesting to me, but at the same time too bold to be credible. And this is a thing that time and again recurs: views are almost constantly being presented based on very speculative interpretations of very limited empirical material. This is, of course, a flaw to which paleontology is bound by definition: there are only a very limited number of archaeological finds and their interpretation is very difficult and complex. But it is precisely this limitation and the large margins of error that exist in the dating of those finds, which should encourage caution. And unfortunately, this prudence is regularly ignored in this Cambridge collection, as it is in a lot of other works on prehistoric times.
(rating 2.5 stars)

[Wing · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first three hundred or so pages are mainly on the nature of Eurocentrism and how advanced methodology can rectify its deficiencies. Some important subfields of world history are introduced to demonstrate how these threads interweave the grand tapestry and how they can be used to anchor perspectives. The second part of the book uses archaeological, genetic, climatological, and linguistic data to give a vivid picture of the Palaeolithic age. It is both comprehensive and easy to grasp. After an overarching survey, each continent is covered separately. All contributors explain quite clearly how conclusions are drawn based on available but at times limited evidence.

[Emmanuel-francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays are well written. I tend to find prehistory boring but not even the essays on that put me to sleep. I would recommend taking them slowly. I found Chapter 8, Fire and fuel in human history to be particular standout.

[Eden]

Within the first 100 pages, I encountered 17 unfounded and/or speculative claims being presented as fact. The rest of the sections didn't get any better. Because of such lacking quality, and after reading some reviews by people whose opinions I trust, I have decided to drop this series. This was quite a disappointment.

Dropped at 30%.

[Ramachandran CHEENIYIL · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting beginning to what promises to be a fantastic journey.