Bibliography
Ristvet, Lauren. In the Beginning: World History from Human Beginnings to
the First States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. A ¿ ne, short introduction to
the Paleolithic era of human history by a historian and archaeologist.Sahlins, Marshall. Stone Age Economics. London: Tavistock, 1972. Sahlins’s
article “The Original AfÀ uent Society” is on pp. 1–39. In it, he argues that
Paleolithic lifeways may have been less harsh than is often assumed.Schrödinger, Erwin. What is Life? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,- First published in 1944. A readable and inÀ uential attempt by a great
physicist to de¿ ne what it is that makes life different.
Sherratt, Andrew. “Plough and Pastoralism: Aspects of the Secondary
Products Revolution.” In Patterns of the Past, edited by I. Hodder, G.
Isaac, and N. Hammond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981,
261–305. A pioneering article that proposed the idea of the “secondary
products revolution” as one of the fundamental technological breakthroughs
in human history.Smith, John Maynard. See Maynard Smith, John.Spier, Fred. The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today,
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996. Fred Spier trained as a
chemist, an anthropologist, and a historian, and for many years he has taught
a course in big history at the University of Amsterdam. By exploring the
similarities and differences between the various “regimes” that can be bound
at different temporal and spatial scales, Spier’s book provides a powerful
argument for the project of big history.Stableford, Brian, and David Langford. The Third Millennium: A History
of the World, AD 2000–3000. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1985. A
persuasive and powerful reconstruction of the history of the next millennium.
It also reads extremely well.Stearns, P. N. The Industrial Revolution in World History. Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1993. A survey of industrialization on a global scale.