Commentary: Book Review: Big History and the Future of Humanity

Chialva: The amount of knowledge and the diversity of the disciplines necessary to compose the wishedfor big history picture (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, history, and many more) impose a multidisciplinary approach. However, the analysis in the book is undertaken by a single author. Evidently, no single author can master the different disciplines at the required level. Reply: As explained in the Preface, the analysis is based on my own multi-disciplinary career that spans both the natural and social sciences over more than 40 years; on a wide reading of academic literature across all relevant disciplines; and on critical contributions by, and discussions with, a great many scholars from many different disciplines, many of them guest lecturers in our big history courses, the first of which started in 1994. Furthermore, all the chapters were read by specialists before publishing the book. All of that has involved an extraordinary amount of work. Whether I have succeeded or not will be left to the judgment of careful and knowledgeable readers.