Bibliography
A vivid and highly personal account of the science and the personal politics
behind one of the great scienti¿ c breakthroughs of the 20th century.Wolf, E. R. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1982. A superb, if sometimes dif¿ cult, history of the
modern world by an anthropologist. It includes a ¿ ne survey of the many
different types of society that existed on the eve of the Modern Revolution.Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. New York: Random
House, 2000. A delightfully written argument about the synergetic and
cumulative nature of human history.Wrigley, E. A. Continuity, Chance, and Change: The Character of the
Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,- A highly original discussion of the English Industrial Revolution by
a great demographic historian. Wrigley emphasizes the importance of the
introduction of fossil fuels.
Useful websites:Powers of 10. There are several “Powers of 10” websites. They survey the
Universe on different scales, changing the scale by 10 times at each step. A
superb way of getting a sense of the vast distance we travel as we move from
the very large to the very small. For three examples, see: http://micro.magnet.
fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/, http://www.powersof10.
com/, and http://www.wordwizz.com/pwrsof10.htm.Big History. Fred Spier’s site includes a bibliography of works on
big history: http://www.iis.uva.nl/i2o/object.cfm/objectid=21E38086-9EAF-
4BB2-A3327D5C1011F7CC/hoofdstuk=5.