Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

(John Hannent) #1

Bibliography


Kelley, Kevin W. The Home Planet. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley
Publishing Company, 1991. A collection of superb photographs of the Earth
from space, accompanied by descriptions by cosmonauts and astronauts of
what it meant to them to look down on our Earth from space.

Kennedy, Paul. Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. London: Fontana,


  1. Surveys many of the long trends of history in the modern era.


Leakey, Richard, and Roger Lewin. The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life
and the Future of Humankind. New York: Doubleday, 1995. A survey of
major extinction events within the last billion years that makes it clear that
current rates of extinction, caused largely by human activity, are as rapid as
they have ever been during this vast period.

Lewin, Roger. Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction. 5th ed.,
Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. A thorough and readable textbook account of
human evolution.

Liebes, Sidney, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme. A Walk Through
Time: From Stardust to Us—The Evolution of Life on Earth. New York: John
Wiley, 1998. Big history from a biological and scienti¿ c perspective, but
with a rich sense of the poetic and mythic overtones of the story.

Lovelock, J. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1979, 1987. Lovelock has argued that, at the highest level, all of life
constitutes a single, evolving entity that he calls “Gaia.” Life, he argues,
has played a profound role in maintaining the Earth’s surface in a condition
that is favorable for the survival of life. An inÀ uential argument about the
relationship between life and the Earth.

Macdougall, J. D. A Short History of Planet Earth: Mountains, Mammals,
Fire, and Ice. New York: John Wiley, 1996. A short and accessible history of
planet Earth.

Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001. Assembles
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