The Journal of Big History (JBH)

ISSN 2475-3610 Editor: Lowell Gustafson (Villanova University) Associate Editor: Cynthia Brown (emerita, Dominican University of California) Assistant Editor: Esther Quaedackers (University of Amsterdam) Book Review Co-editors Cynthia Brown (emerita, Dominican University of California) John Mears (Southern Methodist University)

Editorial Board Mojgan Behmand (Dominican University of California) Craig Benjamin (Grand Valley State University) David Christian (Macquarie University) Andrey Korotayev (Moscow State University)

Johnathan Markley (University of California, Fullerton) BarryLucy Bennison Rodrigue Laffitte (Eurasian (North Center Carolina for Macrohistory, State University) Russian Academy of Sciences) Fred Spier (University of Amsterdam) Joseph Voros (Swinburne University of Technology)

Sun Yue (Capital Normal University) JBH, the journal of the International Big History Association (IBHA), is published on line and is accessible to members of the IBHA. The IBHA also publishes its bulletin, Origins. The bulletin contains members’ accounts of their activities and views, announcements of conferences and meetings of interest, and other communication of interest to IBHA members.

We encourage readers of the JBH to send letters and responses to jbh@ .org or to the address below: Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies Grand Valley State University bighistory 1 Campus Drive Allendale MI 49401-9403 http:// .org/ 616-331-8035 bighistory

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Journal of Big History

Volume I Number 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v1i1 Contents

Welcome to the JBH Book Reviews Lowell Gustafson ...... 1 Edward O. Wilson. Articles The Meaning of Human Existence. Reviewed by David Blanks ...... 59 What is Big History? David Christian ...... 4 Ed Yong. I Contain Multitudes: The On the pursuit of academic Microbes Within Us and a research across all the Grander View of Life. disciplines Reviewed by Fred Spier ...... 63

A Little Big History of Iberian ...... 20 SiddharthaLucy Mukherjee. Bennison Laffitte Gold: How Earth processes The Gene: An Intimate History. concentrated the precious metal Reviewed by Jordan Lieser ...... 66 that played a critical role in the history of Spain and Portugal Marvin Harris. Olga García-Moreno Cultural Materialism: The Luís Erick Aguirre-Palafox Struggle for a Science of Culture. Walter Álvarez Reviewed by William Hawley ...... 40 Cynthia Stokes Brown ...... 68

Walter Álvarez. A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves. Reviewed by J. Daniel May

...... 70

Note on Cover Art Work ...... 72 Welcome to the Journal of Big History Lowell Gustafson

Villanova University Journal of Big History Welcome to the first issue of the In the 1970’s scholars from many disciplines . The International Big History Association began piecing together an evidence-based introduces this new journal to take the most narrative that began – as best as we know now – recent step towards advancing the field of big 13.8 billion years ago. We are able to trace this history. Beginning the journal has been seven account from almost immediately after the big years in the making. bang, to the emergence of protons and neutrons each from three quarks, the formation of hydrogen In 2010, Walter Álvarez, the renowned geologist, and helium atoms 380,000 years later, the first led a seminar held at the Osservatorio Geologico di stars and galaxies, the formation of chemicals, Coldigioco (Geological Observatory of Coldigioco). supernovae, the accretion of Earth 4.5672 billion He brought a small group of big historians just years ago, the first living organisms within a few outside of Gubio, Italy, to one of the places where hundred million years of that, the great increase there is a thin line of iridium in a mountain side. in complexity of life forms, the eventual evolution This iridium provides evidence that tells us about of humans about 200,000 years ago, and the the end of the non-avian dinosaurs 65 million development of increasingly complex social, years ago and the opening for mammals to evolve economic, and political cultures over the past into a variety of species, including humans. Back 12,000 years. On this evidence we can project at Coldigioco, Álvarez also explained how those possible scenarios of the future. same mountains had greatly influenced Italian and European history and culture. He demonstrated No one person could possibly master all the fields how the human past is embedded in a much necessary to produce this achievement. Only by longer global and universal past. working together, learning from each other, and building on earlier work could scholars from many By 2010 many scholars worldwide shared a disciplines start to connect the dots among the passion for big history. Scientists, humanists, and disciplines. social scientists felt a need to form a professional organization in order to structure future Universities have long been dedicated to the discussions and investigations. They recognized pursuit of a universe of knowledge. Yet the many the importance and the difficulties of a highly disciplines that exist within universities and the interdisciplinary field whose purpose was to many subfields that exist in each discipline do not investigate the integrated history of the cosmos, yet all fit together neatly. Often a discipline, or a Earth, life, and humanity, using the best available subfield, tries to build impenetrable walls around empirical evidence and scholarly methods. The itself, protecting its own isolation, and budget outcome of the meeting in Italy was the founding lines. Academic silos are sometimes as resistant of the International Big History Association to forming connections with each other as protons (IBHA). are to each other in the absence of sufficient pressure. Plans began immediately to organize conferences where big historians could share and discuss Still, some scholars continue to forge intellectual their findings with each other. Since 2010 IBHA relationships and build a coherent account of the has organized three conferences, with a fourth entire known past. Marcelo Gleiser, professor of scheduled for 2018, and has published a regular physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, uses bulletin. These initiatives aimed at developing the the analogy of a painstakingly constructed island still new field of big history. of knowledge whose shoreline borders on what Volume I Number 1 Page 1 Welcome to the JBH

we do not yet know or understand. The analogy when it did? Can we find evidence for other brings to mind the island continent of Australia, universes, or fundamentally different kinds of where the new field was named by David Christian reality than exist in this universe? What is nature at Macquarie University a quarter of a century ago. if we cannot observe formative parts of it without that observation changing them? What do the Gleiser’s analogy of an island of knowledge smallest components of our own universe tell us includes the efforts by many people to increase the about the nature from which we have emerged size of the island by making intellectual advances. and that sustains us for now? Exactly how did life The human island of knowledge has increased originate? over the past millennia, centuries, decades, and years. With this in mind, it is fitting that one of How can we connect what we do know to provide the main centers of big history has been at the a better account of where we have come from University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with and who we are now? Why does complexity its history of forming its own land from the sea sometimes develop, while often it does not? beyond itself through the ingenuity and effort of Some of the hydrogen and helium that floated its own people. in unimaginably huge clouds soon after the Big Bang became stars, Earth, single cells, mammals, Rather than providing the intellectual vision for and finally us. The 100 billion neurons with their a single island of knowledge, universities are trillion synapses make each of our brains the most sometimes sites for largely separate disciplines complex matter in the universe of which we know. and departments. Each scholar lives on one of But huge clouds of the simplest elements remain. a number of islands that are barely within sight Unimaginable numbers of single cell organisms of each other. The expertise of disciplines and continue to survive perfectly well without any intellectual focus on specific issues are without Ourincrease complex in their brains structural have permitted complexity. – and have been doubt highly valuable. They have produced the stimulated by – the increasingly complex relationships data from which big history has emerged. Each among humans in kinship groups, villages, cities, discipline offers its own sets of analyses and empires and nations, and global or human structures. understandings. But by themselves, none of them Yet, earlier and simpler compositions often continue, could construct the comprehensive narrative that and more complex ones often return to simpler ones. they can together. Filling in the spaces between In recent times, we have seen regional and global the islands of knowledge, connecting each of them, networks being challenged by populist ones which and pushing out their borders into the unknown, exhibit properties that sometimes seem similar to are no easy tasks. Developing big history requires tribal ones. Our ideas of what it means to be human both advances within established disciplines and within our many sub-categories may have as many intellectual synthesis. layers and components as the rest of nature from which we have evolved. With each new addition to the island of knowledge, with each answer found, with each improvement to our understanding, new questions are raised. We become even more We – and the rest of nature – remain an unfinished aware of what we still do not know. To push out puzzle. Our over-arching narrative has many gaps our borders and to build the connections among and questions. Much remains to investigate and our various islands, we will need to address many ponder, share and debate. The more we know and still unanswered questions. Just a very few of understand, the more we butt up against what we do these might include: How did the universe begin not know and wake up at night trying to figure out. Journal of Big History Page 2 Lowell Gustafson

The Journal of Big History

appears as the result of the journal are indispensable. The scholarship of cooperation by many people. Long discussions all those who submit manuscripts is the key to the early on among David Baker, Cynthia Brown, David success of the journal. Christian, Andrey Korotayev, Esther Quaedackers, Barry Rodrigue, Fred Spier, and the late Ji-Hyung The IBHA will continue to organize conferences Cho, provided the foundation for the subsequent that will encourage traditional and innovativeOrigins . proposal for a journal that was discussed, approaches to big history. It will continue to developed, and approved in 2016 by the IBHA present provocative pieces in its bulletin, Board of Directors. And now, it introduces this new journal to advance the field of big history. Heathe Kyle Yeakley has generously offered much technical advice and service. We have depended Welcome to the shoreline of the islands where we on the careful work of many reviewers and the live now. In this journal we will seek to cultivate journal’s editorial board. The ideas, careful each island of evidence-based knowledge, fill in editing, and commitment of Esther Quaedackers the open spaces between them, and maybe expand and Cynthia Brown to every stage of producing our shoreline from time to time.

Note to Contributors

Chicago manual of style where possible, but in our highly In this journal, we seek to share new scholarship about interdisciplinary field, you may use styles that are traditional big history. Please submit your manuscripts to Lowell in your disciplines. Gustafson at [email protected] or at journalofbighistory. org. Manuscripts will go through a double blind review in Books to be reviewed may be sent to Cynthia Brown, 139 which submitters and reviewers will not be informed of Stonewall Road, Berkeley, CA 94705. Book reviews should be each others’ names. Articles should be approximately 10,000 sent to Cynthia S. Brown ([email protected]) and John words in length, readable by scholars across disciplines, Mears ([email protected]). and based on evidenced and logical thinking. Please use the Volume I Number 1 Page 3 What is Big History?

David Christian Distinguished Professor and Director of the Big History Institute Macquarie University

As they err who study the maps of that includes the pasts studied by biologists, regions before they have learned paleontologists, geologists and cosmologists. By accurately the relation of the whole linking different perspectives and scales, and universe and the separate parts of it to many different scholarly disciplines, all of which each other and to the whole, so they are try to understand the deep roots of today’s world, not less mistaken who think they can big history can transform our understanding of understand particular histories before “history.” they have judged the order and sequence of universal history and of all times, set However, to fully capture the richness and range of forth as it were in a table.1 teaching, we will eventually need the perspectives Big history represents an attempt at what E.O. ofthis big vibrant historians new trainedfield of research,in many other scholarship disciplines. and Wilson has called “consilience,” a return to the I hope this essay may encourage such scholars to offer their distinctive perspectives on big history. of the fragmented visions that dominate modern educationgoal of a unified and scholarship. understanding2 Though of reality, it may in seemplace The evolution of historical scholarship in the new, the goal of consilience is very old. And twentieth century even in its modern forms, big history has been around for at least a quarter of a century. So the Historians will recognize that my title comes Journal of Big from a classic essay on history, studied by most History provides the ideal opportunity for a stock Anglophone history graduates. It was written take.publication of the first issue of the in 1961 by E.H. Carr, an English historian of the Soviet Union. Carr’s book began as a lecture series given at Cambridge in 1961 in honor of George It sees big history as the modern form of an Macauley Trevelyan, a historian who, unlike Carr, ancientThis article project. is a personal I am a historian account by of training,the field. so saw history as a literary discipline, and quite my account focuses on the relationship of big distinct from the sciences. As a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, Carr took seriously the perspective of a historian trained in the English- Marxist insistence that history should be regarded speakinghistory to world, the discipline and it focuses of history. on big It reflectshistory’s the relationship to Anglophone historical scholarship. own thinking about history as I, too, entered the But not just to Anglophone historical scholarship, as a branch of science, and that idea influenced my because the debates I discuss had their the early 1970s. counterparts and echoes in many other traditions field of Russian history as a graduate student in of historical scholarship. Nor do I focus just on In “What is History?” Carr tracks the evolution of historical scholarship as it is normally understood the history discipline in England in the early 20th within the academy, because big history sees century. At one level, his story is of a sustained human history as part of a much larger past

1 Jean Bodin, 16th century, cited from Craig Benjamin “Beginningstrend awayand Endings,” from the in confident Marnie Hughes-Warrington, realism, positivism ed., Palgrave Advances in World Histories (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 95. 2 E.O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (London: Abacus, 1998). What is Big History?

and even universalism of many nineteenth each offering its own pin-hole view of the world. century historical thinkers, towards increasing Specialization proved a powerful research fragmentation and skepticism. He begins by strategy, but it was achieved by severing ancient

scholarship from the 1890s, as Acton presided increasingly isolated from each other. The idea of citing Lord Acton’s confidentCambridge vision of historicalModern alinks single among world fields of knowledge, of knowledge, whether leaving united them by History. Acton saw the Cambridge Modern religious cosmologies, such as that of Christianity, Historyover the as first “a uniqueedition opportunity of the of recording, … the fullness of the knowledge which the behind Alexander von Humboldt’s attempt to nineteenth century is about to bequeath….” He or by scientific scholarship—the vision thatKosmos lay added: “Ultimate history we cannot have in this was abandoned.5 In humanities disciplines such as generation [but] … all information is now within history,write a scientificwhich lacked universal the sort history of unifying in his paradigm— reach, and every problem has become capable of ideas characteristic of the natural sciences in solution.”3 the era of Darwin, of Maxwell and of Einstein, positivist, and optimistic, and it assumes that history is part Acton’s of the view larger of history project is of confident, increasing epistemological realism.6 human knowledge in general. His vision of history specialization also undermined Acton’s confident is also broad. He assumed that historians should Carr captures some of these changes by citing aim at some kind of “universal history,” though he the introduction to the second edition of the seems to have understood that phrase to mean, Cambridge Modern History, written by George not an early form of big history, but something Clark in 1957, more than half a century after closer to modern “world history” or “global Acton’s hopes for an “ultimate history,” Clark which is distinct from the combined history of all writes:Acton’s confident pronouncements. After citing countries.”history.” Acton4 defined universal history as “that Historians of a later generation do not In the early twentieth century, English look forward to any such prospect. They historical scholarship underwent a profound expect their work to be superseded again transformation, and when Carr wrote, the and again. …The exploration seems to discipline was more fractured and less sure of be endless, and some impatient scholars itself. These shifts were part of a sea-change take refuge in skepticism, or at least that affected most scholarly disciplines, from in the doctrine that, since all historical the humanities to the natural sciences, as judgements involve persons and points specialization and professionalization broke of view, one is as good as another and scholarship into ever-smaller compartments, there is no ‘objective’ historical truth.7

3 E. H. Carr, What is History? (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), 7. 1st published in 1961, based on the George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures, delivered in 1961 in Cambridge. 4 Carr, What is History? 150. 5 On Humboldt as a big historian before his time, see Fred Spier, Big History and the Future of Humanity, 2nd ed. (Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell, 2015, 18-21, and Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, (London: John Murray, 2015). 6 in 1962, just a year after Carr’s book: Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of TheChicago distinction Press, 1970).between paradigm and pre-paradigm disciplines was introduced by a book whose first edition appeared 7 Carr, What is History? 7-8.

Journal of Big History Page 5 David Christian

Carr’s own position falls between the robust epistemology in disciplines such as history, widenedThe loss ofthe confidence gulf between in a therealist “two or cultures” naturalist of relativism of Clark. He explores brilliantly the the sciences and humanities that so worried C.P. complexscientific dialectic realism ofbetween Acton and history the hesitantas truth and Snow in a famous lecture delivered in 1959.8 history as stories we tell about the past. He takes The gulf was particularly wide in the English- truth and science seriously, because he believes speaking world, because English, unlike most that history, like science, and like truth in general, has a purpose: it can empower us. It empowers “science,” to the natural sciences. In English, the us by improving our understanding of the present, veryother idea scholarly of “historical languages, science” confined began the to word, seem and it does that by mapping the present on to the absurd. By Carr’s time, historical scholarship past: “The function of the historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the nature of historical scholarship, and in the realist past, but to master and understand it as the key epistemologyhad lost confidence that still both underpinned in the “scientific” research in to the understanding of the present.”10 It followed the natural sciences. that the maps of the past created by historians had to be good maps. Like good science, they Skepticism and intellectual fragmentation sapped had to give us a better grip on the real world. So Carr, like Marx, was a philosophical realist undermined the ancient hope that history could and saw no fundamental chasm between the empowerconfidence us in by the helping value ofus historical better understand research, and humanities and the natural sciences. “Scientists, the present. As historians became increasingly social scientists, and historians are all engaged in isolated from other disciplines and even from each different branches of the same study: the study of other, they were left with increasingly fragmented man and his environment, of the effects of man on visions of the past, and of the nature and goals his environment and of his environment on man. of history. This growing sense of fragmentation The object of the study is the same: to increase was the scholarly counterpart of what Durkheim man’s understanding of, and mastery over, his called anomie, the loss of a sense of coherence environment.”11 and meaning, an idea that Carr himself glosses in a footnote as “the condition of the individual On the other hand, Carr understood more clearly isolated from … society.”9 Scholarly anomie than Acton that the past is not simply waiting arose from the growing isolation of scholars slab.”12 History consists of stories about the past knowledge. The one force that partially mitigated constructedto be discovered, by historians, “like fish andon a how fishmonger’s we construct theboth growing from each sense other of scholarlyand from isolationa unified was world of those stories changes as our world and our nationalism. Though tribal by their very nature, purposes change. We need empirical rigor to get at the truth about the past, but when telling the nineteenth century, provided some sense of stories about the past we will need the skills of cohesionnational histories, for historians which working had flourished within national since storytellers, including what Carr calls “imaginative historiographical traditions. understanding,” the ability to understand and

8 C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959). 9 Carr, What is History? 32. 10 Carr, What is History? 26. 11 Carr, What is History? 84. 12 Carr, What is History? 23.

Volume I Number 1 Page 6 What is Big History?

empathize with those who lived in the past.13 Like Marx, then, Carr understood the complex and delicate balance between history as truth English philosophers of history, R.G. Collingwood, and history as story. History is, Carr wrote, in thoughIn this, Carrhe warned was influenced that Collingwood’s by one of theemphasis great on a passage familiar to many a graduate student the empathetic role of the historian, if taken too in history: “a continuous process of interaction far, could lead to extreme skepticism.14 between the historian and [the] facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.”16 Like memory, history does not recall the past; it re- Marx’s dialectical balance between science and creates it. activism.Particularly Marx influential insisted onthat Carr’s there thinking is an objective was past. But making something of that past is a But what past? Carr was even more committed creative task, and how we approach it depends on than Acton to broadening the scope of historical who we are and the particular present in which research. He was, after all, a historian of Russia, we write and study. This is the dialectic that Marx described in a famous passage from the “18th histories that had been neglected by English- Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.” speakingand keen historians.to demonstrate As an the admirer significance of Joseph of Needham, he also insisted on the importance of Men make their own history, but they Chinese history and the histories of many other do not make it just as they please; they parts of the world beyond Europe. do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under But, though Carr’s past is broad, it is not deep. He circumstances directly found, given and shows little interest in human prehistory or in the transmitted from the past. The tradition histories of the biosphere and the Universe. And of all the dead generations weighs like a that is surprising, given his interest in Marx, who nightmare on the brain of the living.15 saw history as part of a knowledge continuum that included all the sciences. Indeed, Marx, like von Historians, too, “make their own history,” but Humboldt, was a big historian before his time. But they do so “under circumstances directly found, Carr wrote in an era of scholarly fragmentation, and given and transmitted from the past.” What they the idea of universal history was not on his radar, make of the past depends on the time and place in or on the radar of any English-language historians which they write. But the stories they construct of his generation. Strangely, though, it was on the radar of historians in the Soviet Union, the country pasts studied by future historians. As an activist, whose history Carr wrote most about, because Marxabout understood the past may, well in theirthat how turn, we influence describe the the the Soviet Union’s Marxist heritage ensured that past matters, because our accounts may shape the the idea of “universal” or “general” history never future. Indeed, he hoped that his own account of entirely lost its inclusive Marxist sense. That is one the evolution of capitalism would have a profound impact on the future, as indeed, it did. school of big history research led by scholars such asreason Andrey why, Korotayev today, there and is Leonid a flourishing Grinin. Russian 13 Carr, What is History? 24. 14 Collingwood’s work, like Carr’s, was staple fare for graduates of my generation. His most important work was R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, rev. ed., Jan Van der Dussen (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 15 Cited from Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1978), 595. 16 Carr, What is History? 30.

Journal of Big History Page 7 David Christian

In 2001, David Cannadine edited a collection of of knowledge or meaning. Historians became essays called What is History Now? based on a increasingly isolated from other disciplines (the conference held to mark the 40th anniversary of decline of economic history is a striking example Carr’s book.17 Much had changed since Carr wrote. of this process), and even from each other, and any The history discipline had become even more consensus about the nature and goals of history fragmented, in both content and epistemology, seemed to evaporate. In an introductory essay and even less sure of itself. The universalist vision to Cannadine’s book, Richard Evans noted the of Marx or von Humboldt or H.G. Wells seemed increasing focus in a postmodernist era on the to have vanished completely, surviving only in creative and subjective role of the historian and on the cut-down version of national histories. Many the historian’s role as storyteller. This approach of the changes evident in Cannadine’s collection had been epitomized in Hayden White’s 1973 classic, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination university students, historians, and historical sub- in Nineteenth Century Europe, which focused disciplines.reflect the post-war This was proliferation a worldwide of phenomenon, universities, almost entirely on the literary aspects of historical so similar trends can be found, with variations, in scholarship, rather than on the truth claims it many different historiographical traditions. made. Historical scholarship seemed to have splintered into multiple, incommensurable, stories Since Cannadine’s book was no longer about a about the past, each representing a particular single history discipline, it was appropriate that it had multiple authors. More historians and more on historical truth. Historians seemed to have students seemed to mean more diverse ideas takenperspective, on the anddeep none skepticism confident towards about grandits claims on the content, the meaning and the purpose of narratives or meta-narratives that Jean- François historical scholarship. Each chapter is about a different type of history, so there are chapters thought.18 called: “What is Social History now?” “What is Lyotard saw as a defining feature of postmodern intellectual History Now?” and “What is Cultural And yet, … though the tremors barely registered History Now?” The absence of “What is Women’s on the seismograph of Cannadine’s volume, History Now?” or “What is Environmental History by the year 2000, the idea of a new form of Now?” is striking, though Cannadine insists that universal history was already rattling the margins of historical scholarship. World history was disciplines into which history was then divided. his book reflects just a small number of the sub- scholarly organization and a successful journal Fragmentation was accompanied by increasing (flourishingThe Journal in of the World USA, History had a well-established), and was taught in an increasing number of universities and nature of the discipline. True, most historians schools. But several scholars now ventured far continuedskepticism to about approach the objectivity the details and of theirthe scientific research beyond world history. They began to explore the with a robust, realist empiricism, so much so, possibility of a truly universal history that would that many caricatured the discipline as just a embrace the whole of the past, including the catalogue of facts. But, as the circle of questions pasts of the biosphere and the entire universe. By 2001, I had been teaching big history for 12 dwindle, and few were comfortable with the idea years, but I was just one member of a small but ofwidened, historical the scholarship confidence asof parthistorians of a larger seemed system to vigorous community of scholars moving in the

17 David Cannadine, ed., What is History Now? (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002). 18 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

Volume I Number 1 Page 8 What is Big History?

same direction. Eric Chaisson had been teaching What seemed just decades ago an archaic, astronomer’s versions of big history for more than unrealistic, and perverse approach to historical twenty years, and big history was being taught in scholarship is now beginning to look like a Amsterdam by Fred Spier and Johan Goudsblom, powerful, rigorous and even transformative in Dallas by John Mears, in San Rafael by Cynthia form of modern scholarship, which can re- connect historical scholarship and teaching to Graeme Davidson, and elsewhere. Big history other disciplines in both the humanities and the snuckStokes up Brown, on a history in Melbourne discipline by Tomthat Griffithswas looking and sciences. in the opposite direction. Why the return to Universal History?

big history remains marginal, but it is beginning What happened? toToday, shake fifteen up the years history after discipline. Cannadine’s19 There volume, is an emerging scholarly literature that proves big Some of the crucial changes occurred within history can be written with rigor and precision the history discipline itself. There had always and can yield new, sometimes transformative, been a few scholars, such as H.G. Wells or insights into the past.20 Big history is being taught Arnold Toynbee, who kept alive the vision of a successfully in several universities, mostly in the more capacious understanding of the past. But English-speaking world, and even those history specialist research also laid the foundations for a departments that do not teach it often include broader view of the past, by generating a colossal discussions of big history in their historiography amount of new historical scholarship and tackling seminars. There are several MOOCs (Massive subjects and regions and epochs that had been Open Online Courses) on big history. There is ignored by earlier generations of historians. a scholarly association (the IBHA), which has Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, a world historian with held three major conferences, and now there is extraordinarily broad interests, puts it nicely in a a journal of big history. Macquarie University chapter in Cannadine’s volume: has established a Big History Institute, which has organized two research conferences. Big history Historians dig ever deeper, narrower is even being taught in hundreds of high schools, furrows in ever more desiccated soil mostly in the USA and Australia, through the “Big until the furrows collapse and they are History Project,” a free, on-line high school buried under their own aridity. Yet on syllabus in big history, launched in 2011 and the other hand, whenever one climbs out funded by Bill Gates. of one’s furrow, there is now so much

enriching new work, which can change more of the field to survey, so much 19 One interesting example is The History Manifesto, by Jo Guldi and David Armitage, (Cambridge: CUP, 2014), which offers an aggressive critique of short-termism in contemporary historical scholarship. 20 A start up list might include Eric Chaisson, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001; David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2nd ed., 2011; Fred Spier, Big History and the Future of Humanity, 2nd ed., Malden, MA: Wiley/Blackwell, 2015; Cynthia Stokes Brown, Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present, 2nd ed., New York: New Press, 2012; a university text, David Christian, Cynthia Stokes Brown, and Craig Benjamin, Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014; anthologies of essays, such as Barry Rodrique, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev, eds., From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations: A Big History Anthology, Vol. 1, Our Place in the Univere, Delhi: Primus Books, 2015; and a beautifully illustrated overview, Macquarie University Big History Institute, Big History, London: DK books, 2016.

Journal of Big History Page 9 David Christian

one’s perspective or broaden one’s of that discovery would only become apparent framework of comparison.21 over the next decade or two. The discoveries that clinched plate tectonics and Big Bang cosmology However, many of the changes that allowed a still lay a few years in the future. By 1970, though, return to universal history occurred beyond the new paradigms were already encouraging the history discipline, and particularly within the natural sciences, which had always been in the natural sciences. Some scientists began to more friendly than the humanities to the idea hopes of a new unification of knowledge, at least of consilience.22 The quantum physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, had already anticipated new forms of Particularlytalk of “Grand striking Unified is Theories.” the fact that the new

World War II on the nature of life. Gone was the static universe of Newton, replaced scholarly unification in a book he wrote just after byscientific a universe paradigms that operated were historical according in tonature. historical We have inherited from our forefathers and evolutionary rules. E.H. Carr was aware of the “historical turn” in the natural sciences, and its embracing knowledge. The very name giventhe keen to the longing highest for institutionsunified, all- of learning reminds us that from antiquity yearssignificance or so. forScience, history, he thoughwrote: his insights would and throughout many centuries the be ignored by most historians over the next fifty universal aspect has been the only one to had undergone a profound revolution …. be given full credit. … We feel clearly that What Lyell did for geology and Darwin we are only now beginning to acquire for biology has now been done for reliable material for welding together astronomy, which has become a science the sum total of all that is known into a of how the universe came to be what whole; …23 it is …. The historian has some excuse for feeling himself more at home in the In the natural sciences, as in the humanities, world of science today than he could specialized scholarship over many decades have done a hundred years ago.24 yielded a huge bounty of new information and ideas. Equally important was the emergence of In the English-speaking world, Big Bang new unifying paradigm ideas. The most important cosmology encouraged astronomers such as were Big Bang cosmology, plate tectonics and Carl Sagan to recount the history of the universe, the modern Darwinian synthesis. The new while plate tectonics encouraged geologists paradigms were barely visible when Carr wrote. such as Preston Cloud to write new histories of DNA had been discovered in Carr’s own University planet earth.25 It turned out that many natural scientists were in the same messy business

of21 Cambridge, Cannadine, ed.,in 1953, What isbut History the full Now? significance 149. 22 This section summarizes and adds to arguments I have presented in “The Return of Universal History,” History and Theory, Theme Issue, 49 (December, 2010), 5-26. 23 Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life? barriers that specialization placed in the way of such ambitions. 24 Carr, What is History? 57. (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), 1 [first pub. 1944]; Schrödinger was also acutely aware of the 25 Carl Sagan’s television series, Cosmos, Cosmos, Earth, and Man: A Short History of the Universe ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978) was published just two years earlier; the Soviet Union already was first broadcast in 1980; Preston Cloud’s I. Vernadsky, The Biosphere, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998. had a flourishing tradition of “biosphere” history, pioneered by the great geologist, Vladimir Vernadsky in works such as V.

Volume I Number 1 Page 10 What is Big History?

This all changed with the emergence of vanished past from the random clues it had left radiometric dating techniques in the 1950s. In toas thehistorians—that present. The ofhistorical trying to turn reconstruct in the natural a 1953, Claire Paterson used the half-life of uranium sciences brought the methods of scientists closer in meteorites to determine that Earth is 4.56 to those of historians. Controlled experiments billion years old. His date stands to this day. on the origins of life on Earth or the Russian When Carr wrote in 1961, radiometric dating Revolution were out of the question. Instead, it was just beginning to transform the thinking of archaeologists and pre-historians. In 1962, at the same methodological challenge as historians: Kenniff Cave in South Queensland, John Mulvaney thatturned of collectingout that many as many scientific clues disciplinesto the past facedas they used radiometric techniques to show that humans had lived in Australia since before the end of the last ice age, and over the next few decades, the plausiblecould—from and ancient even meaningful starlight, toaccounts zircon crystals,of the earliest dates for human settlement in Australia past.to fossil This trilobites—and was territory usingfamiliar them to historians.to reconstruct The would be pushed back to between 50,000 and knockdown dis-proofs favored by Karl Popper perhaps 60,000 years.29 As Colin Renfrew writes: were rarely available, and other, fuzzier, skills familiar to historians, such as pattern-recognition … the development of radiometric dating or hunches bases on prolonged familiarity with methods, … allowed the construction of a chronology for prehistory in every natural sciences.26 part of the world. It was, moreover, a a given field, acquired increasing salience in the chronology free of any assumptions Particularly important for the emergence of about cultural developments or modern forms of universal history was the relationships, and it could be applied as development of radiometric dating techniques well to nonliterate societies as to those with written records. To be prehistoric for histories of the deep past.27 When H.G. Wells no longer meant to be ahistoric in a thatattempted could providea universal a firm history chronological just after skeletonWorld War chronological sense.30 I, the early parts of his story sagged because, as Wells admitted, all his absolute dates depended Eventually, radiometric and other dating on written records, so he could provide none techniques made it possible to construct rigorous before the First Olympiad (776 BCE).28 Nineteenth chronologies reaching back to the origins of the century geologists had learned how to construct relative chronologies by studying the layering tell a universal history based on a robust universal of ancient rocks, but none could tell when the chronology.universe. For the first time, it is now possible to Cambrian explosion occurred or when Earth formed.

26 Real Science: What it is, and what it means (Cambridge: CUP, 2000). 27 SeeThere David is a fineChristian, account “Historia, of the real, complejidad as opposed y revolución to the idealized, cronométrica” methodologies [“History, of modern Complexity science and in the John Chronometric Ziman, Revolution”], Revista de Occidente, Abril 2008, No 323, 27-57, and David Christian, “History and Science after the Chronometric Revolution”, in Steven J. Dick and Mark L. Lupisella, eds., Cosmos & Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context (NASA, 2009), 441-462; and see Doug Macdougall Natures’ Clocks: How Scientists Measure the Age of Almost Everything (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 28 H.G. Wells, Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, 3rd ed., (New York: Macmillan),1921, 1102. 29 John Mulvaney & Johan Kamminga, Prehistory of Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999), 1-2. 30 Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007), 41.

Journal of Big History Page 11 David Christian

Some of these changes did just register in David Cannadine’s collection of essays. In the last explore several, overlapping descriptions of what chapter of that book, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto bigIn the history final ispart and of what this essayit could I would be. These like to are argued that history had widened its scope, personal thoughts, and some are speculative. But specialization by specialization, and now needed I hope they may interest even those who are less to embrace the natural sciences: “history can no persuaded by them than I am. And I hope they longer remain encamped in one of ‘two cultures’. may encourage a broad discussion about big Human beings are obviously part of the animal history and its future. My thoughts are organized, continuum.”31 In 1998, the great world historian, loosely, along a spectrum running from the ‘truth’ William H. McNeill, argued that historians needed end of Carr’s dialectic of history towards the to embed the history of humanity within the ‘storytelling’ end. history of the biosphere and even the Universe as a whole: The goal of big history, like that of all good knowledge, is to empower us by helping Human beings, it appears, do indeed us understand the world we live in. Big history belong in the universe and share its empowers us by helping us understand our world. unstable, evolving character.... [W]hat Like all forms of history, big history empowers us happens among human beings and primarily by mapping the present onto the past, what happens among the stars looks so as to help us better understand how today’s to be part of a grand, evolving story world came to be as it is. This claim about the featuring spontaneous emergence of purpose of history assumes a realist or naturalist complexity that generates new sorts of understanding of knowledge. As evolved behavior at every level of organization creatures, we interact with our surroundings from the minutest quarks and leptons with some degree of success, and that success to the galaxies, from long carbon chains presupposes that we (like all living organisms) to living organisms and the biosphere, can attain a limited but real understanding of and from the biosphere to the symbolic our surroundings. Though aware of the limits to universes of meaning within which knowledge, big history, like science in general, human beings live and labor, …32 resists extreme forms of skepticism or relativism. It builds on the same realist and naturalist In his last years, McNeill became increasingly foundations as good science, and has the same interested in the idea of Big History, seeing it ultimate goal, of empowerment. as a natural extension of his own broad vision of history. It was, as his son, John, has written: Big history is universal. But if “the thing that excited him most (aside from understanding the past can empower us, shouldn’t grandchildren).”33 we try to understand the whole of the past? What distinguishes big history most decisively from other forms of historical scholarship is its attempt What is Big History? to understand the past as a whole. It aspires to a universal understanding of history. Big history is So, what is big history? not hostile to specialist historical scholarship. On the contrary, it is utterly dependent on the rich

31 Cannadine, What is History Now? 153. 32 History and Theory, 37, no. 1 (1998): 12-13. 33 Origins (Newsletter of the International Big History Association), VI.08 (2016), 7. William H. McNeill, “History and the Scientific Worldview,”

Volume I Number 1 Page 12 What is Big History? scholarship of specialists. But it tries to link the may occur in other parts of the big history story, as biologists probe the origins of life on earth, unifying vision, just as millions of local maps can or astronomers look for life around other star befindings connected of specialist to form scholarship a single world into map. a larger These systems, or as neuroscientists and psychologists ambitious goals mean that big history swims begin to get a grip on the ‘hard’ problem against the tide of intellectual fragmentation that of consciousness, or historians get a better structured so much scholarship in the twentieth understanding of the role of religion and science century. Big history aims at consilience, at what in human history at multiple scales. Alexander von Humboldt once called the “Mad Frenzy … of representing in a single work the whole material world.”34 comprehensive understanding of history, the intellectualWith these qualifications,equivalent of a big world history map aims of the at past.a Like a world map, the big history story can help history’s ambitious universalism. Big history us see not just the major nations and oceans of recognizesMany interesting no disciplinary consequences barriers flow to from historical big the past, but also the links and synergies that knowledge. It presumes the existence of a connect different scholarly continents, regions whole range of historically-oriented disciplines, and islands into a single knowledge world. The all of them linked by the same goal: that of broad perspective of big history also encourages reconstructing how our world came to be as us to move among multiple scales, from those of it is. Indeed, I often wonder if we may not the universe itself, to those of humans, to those of see, sometime in the future, a re-arrangement individual cells, within which millions of precisely of university campuses, so that, instead calibrated reactions occur every second. Big of putting the sciences at one end and the history encourages us to connect the dots in time and space, to look for the synergies between devoted to ‘the historical sciences’, in which disparate entities, disciplines and scales. Russian astronomers,humanities at geologists,the other, you evolutionary would find biologists, a zone scholars such as Andrey Korotayev have been neuroscientists, and historians would all be particularly active in the important task of looking working together. for mathematical patterns in the evolution of complexity at multiple scales. The universal aspirations of big history mean that it will embrace all areas of knowledge that have By focusing on the ideas that link disciplines, big generated plausible, rigorous, evidence-based history can help us overcome the more extreme accounts of the past, and any discipline whose forms of skepticism characteristic of much insights can illuminate the past. This means twentieth century scholarship, particularly in that, at present, it makes sense to draw a line the humanities. In Durkheim’s hands, the idea of between everything that happened just after the “anomie” referred to the absence of a clear sense of place or meaning, a condition of intellectual homelessness in which the world itself made little thebig bang—abig bang, past territory that can where be reconstructedthere is plenty with of sense and individuals could feel isolated enough to interestingoodles of evidence—and speculation, but anything not, as thatyet, precededa taut, contemplate suicide. The extreme fragmentation evidence-based story. This may change, of course, of twentieth century scholarship allowed great in which case, the big history story itself will intellectual progress, discipline by discipline. expand to incorporate, perhaps, evidence for a But it did so at the cost of isolating disciplines multiverse or for string theory. Similar changes from each other, which limited the possibilities 34 Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature, Chapter 18, “Humboldt’s Cosmos.”

Journal of Big History Page 13 David Christian both for a larger, unifying vision, and for truth- checking between disciplines. Particularly in of expertise. But the extraordinary breadth of the humanities, intellectual isolation generated biginsights history and means paradigms that, thoughfrom outside it will theirbuild fieldson the insights of experts, it will also require many in claims to generate meaning or to achieve a other scholarly skills, not all of which are valued in morescholarly general forms grasp of anomie of reality. that The sapped postmodernist confidence today’s fragmented knowledge world. Big history skepticism shared by so many scholars in the requires, above all, an ability to grasp and then humanities in the late twentieth century was link scholarship from many different disciplines. It demands breadth as much as depth, and a sharp positivism. But, when taken to extremes, it eye for unexpected synergies among disciplines. createda useful acorrective splintered to sense over-confident of reality that forms could of be And it requires an ability to tune into the different profoundly dis-empowering, both intellectually intellectual frequencies of multiple disciplines. and ethically. Some saw it as the scholarly Big historians will have to be interdisciplinary equivalent of suicide. translators, sensitive to subtle nuances in the way different disciplines use similar concepts, words and methods. And they will also ask deep interdisciplinary questions. Are there ideas mapsBig history of reality. returns, By removing with due scientificthe partitions modesty, to that work well across multiple disciplines, from betweenthe ancient disciplines, project of big trying history to assemble can help unifiedre- cosmology to biology and history, ideas such as the establish a more balanced relationship between “regimes” and “Goldilocks conditions” described specialist scholarship and large, paradigm ideas. by Fred Spier, or the “free energy density” rates that lie at the heart of Eric Chaisson’s work? Can Big history is collaborative and the idea of entropy, which plays such a powerful collective. The big history story is being role in physics, illuminate our understanding of assembled, like a vast mosaic, using tiles from human history? Can the atomic level molecular many different countries, epochs and scholarly machines being explored today by nano-biologists disciplines. All scholarship is collaborative. But the extraordinary range of big history puts today’s world?35 Are there universal mechanisms collaboration at the heart of the new discipline. A (perhapssuggest new some ways form of ofmanaging universal energy Darwinism?) flows in rich and reliable big history story will not be the that explain the appearance of increasingly product of individual scholarly minds, but the joint complex entities despite the second law of creation of millions of minds. thermodynamics?

The extreme scholarly collaboration required By focusing not just on the individual islands to write big history should encourage a re-think and continents of modern scholarship, but also of what we mean by expertise. Specialization on the many links between them, big history can encouraged the notion that, if you narrowed provide a new framework for interdisciplinary thinking and research. Researchers familiar with big history’s world map of the past will naturally becamethe field experts.of enquiry This enough, view was individual always scholars naïve seek out useful ideas and methods from beyond becausecould achieve even thetotal narrowest mastery ofof aexperts field. They drew on their own specialist disciplines. Transdisciplinary

35 Peter M. Hoffmann, Life’s Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos (New York: Basic Books, 2012), is a wonderful exploration of how molecular machines exploit the “molecular storm” created by the random energy of individual molecules to power the chemistry of cells; and why doing so does not breach the second law of thermodynamics, because it depends on additional sources of free energy, mostly supplied by the battery molecule, ATP.

Volume I Number 1 Page 14 What is Big History? research will become particularly important as millions of individuals, working within shared more and more problems, from climate change networks of knowledge. In just one century, the sphere of human mind, or the “Noösphere,” as Vernadsky called it, has become a planet-changing disciplines.to the study Indeed,of cancer the or very financial success crises, of research begin force.36 withinto depend disciplines on findings explains and insightswhy more from and multiple more interesting and important problems now lie My personal conviction is that the idea of between disciplines. As interdisciplinary research “collective learning” offers a paradigm idea that becomes increasingly important, big history can can frame our understanding of human history offer a new model of scholarly expertise, that and of the distinctive nature of our own species. demands breadth of knowledge and an alertness Human history is driven by collective learning to unexpected interdisciplinary synergies. just as the history of living organisms is driven by natural selection. If this idea is broadly correct, The young discipline of big history has also it illustrates the capacity of big history to clarify shown that intellectual collaboration is a deep problems by helping us see them against an distinctive feature of our species, Homo sapiens. exceptionally broad background, as part of the “world map” of modern knowledge. as a species, our technological creativity seems toThough have beenmany clinched evolutionary by the features evolution define of an us Big history is a story. So far, I have exceptionally powerful form of language that discussed the nature of the truth-claims that allows us to exchange ideas and insights with can be made by big history, and its capacity to such precision and in such volume that they can synergize collaborative, interdisciplinary research. accumulate in the collective memory. We know But of course, big history also tells a story. It of no other species in which learned knowledge arises, as Carr wrote of all history, from “an accumulates across multiple generations so that unending dialogue between the present and the later generations know, not just different things, past.” Its two poles are the past as a whole and the but more things than earlier generations. And historians who view that past from a particular this difference has proved transformative. The vantage point in the present. Like history in accumulation of learned information by millions general, big history is very much a product of the of individuals across multiple generations explains historians who are constructing the big history our increasing control over the resources and story. That means, of course, that big history is evolving and will evolve, like all stories, as it is told trend has shaped much of human history, and has by different tellers, writing in different contexts culminatedenergy flows today of the in biosphere. making us Thisthe single accelerating most and with different preoccupations. powerful force for change in the biosphere. In my own work, I have described our unique capacity Big history is an origin story. But for sharing and accumulating information as because of its universalist ambitions, big history is “collective learning.” It has given us humans not not just another story about the past. Its universal ambitions mean that big history shares much resources through the environment, but also with traditional origin stories. As far as we know, increasingonly increasing insight control into the over world flows and of energythe universe and all human communities have tried to construct we inhabit. Modern science, as well as modern religions and literatures, are all the creations of surrounds us. This is the sense in which I will use unified accounts of the origins of everything that 36 On the idea of a Noösphere, see David Christian, “The Noösphere,” from the Edge.org Annual Question for 2017 (Jan 2017), at https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27068

Journal of Big History Page 15 David Christian the idea of “origin stories.” Origin stories attempt experience, a deep sense of loss. Today, we are so to hold together and pass on all that is known in a used to a world without universal framing ideas given community about how our world came to be (particularly in the humanities), that it is easy as it is. They are extraordinarily powerful if they to forget how painful it was to lose the sense of are believed, if they ring true to those who hear intellectual coherence that goes with trust in an and re-tell them, whether we are talking about origin story. But that sense of loss is apparent in foraging communities of the Paleolithic world, or much of the literature, philosophy and art of the the great philosophical and religious traditions of late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here are just major world civilizations, from Confucianism to two, more or less random, examples of what I Buddhism to the traditions of the Aztec world, of mean. In his 1851 poem, “Dover Beach,” Matthew Christianity and of Islam. They are also powerful Arnold writes: because they are shared by most members of a given community, who learn the rudiments The Sea of Faith of their origin stories as children, and then Was once, too, at the full, and round internalize those stories in the course of many earth’s shore years of education, with increasing detail and Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. sophistication. As far as we know, origin stories But now I only hear can be found at the core of all forms of education. Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, They have provided foundational knowledge in Retreating, to the breath seminaries and universities, as well as in the rich Of the night-wind, down the vast edges oral traditions passed on by elders in all foraging drear communities. And naked shingles of the world.

In the light of this discussion it is apparent The poem continues with a terrifying vision of a that Durkheim’s notion of “anomie” can also be future without coherence or meaning: understood as the state of mind of those who lack access to a credible, rich and authoritative Ah, love, let us be true origin story. Intellectual anomie is a state of map- To one another! for the world, which lessness and meaninglessness. Curiously, it is seems the intellectual state that became the norm in the To lie before us like a land of dreams, twentieth century, as globalization and modern So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor stories, both in the metropolitan centers of the light, worldscience and battered at its colonial confidence margins. in traditional Everywhere, origin Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for modern secular educational systems ceased to pain; teach within shared traditions of foundational And we are here as on a darkling plain knowledge. Swept with confused alarms of struggle

Some found the decline of traditional origin Where ignorant armies clash by night. and flight, W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” was written in worldstories without exhilarating a shared and originliberating, story. and But glorified many, 1919, just after the Great War seemed to realize bothin the in multiple, the colonial free-floating world and perspectives in the metropolitan of a Arnold’s haunting vision of the future. heartlands, experienced, and continue to

Volume I Number 1 Page 16 What is Big History?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre But a different interpretation is also possible. The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Perhaps for much of the twentieth century, we Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; have lived in a sort of intellectual building site, Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, surrounded by the debris of older origin stories, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and while a new origin story was being constructed all everywhere around us, a story for humanity as a whole. The The ceremony of innocence is drowned; best evidence for this idea is the re-emergence of

The poem ends with a famous and terrifying from this perspective, big history is the project image: ofnew trying unifying to tease stories out inand the build last afifty modern, years. globalSeen origin story. what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Big history is an origin story for the Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Anthropocene Epoch. Perhaps, then, we can think of big history as an origin story for the Specialization and the loss of traditional unifying narratives were symptomatic of the chaotic and intellectual achievements of modern science, but incoherent world described in so much twentieth ittwenty-first is also the century.product of Big an history increasingly builds globalized on the century literature, art and philosophy. Indeed, world, that is very different from the world of it has often been assumed that this world of isolated, even incommensurable disciplines faster than he could have imagined, and new and perspectives is characteristic of modernity technologiesE.H. Carr. Scientific such as knowledge the Internet has have advanced created in general. The modern world threw together a much more intertwined world. But perhaps peoples, cultures, religions and traditions so the most important changes arise from the great violently that it created a growing sense of a acceleration, the astonishing increase in human numbers, human energy use, human control over traditional visions of the world. In the Communist the environment, and human inter-connectedness, Manifesto,single humanity, we read while that, undermining in the bourgeois confidence era of in in the sixty years since Carr wrote. In that brief period, we humans have collectively become the with their train of ancient and venerable single most important force for change in the prejudiceshuman history: and opinions, “All fixed, are fast-frozen swept away, relations, all new- formed ones become antiquated before they can role in the 4 billion year history of life on earth. ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is Thatbiosphere, is an outcome the first singlethat Carr species could to not play have such a holy is profaned, …” In a book on modernity that imagined in 1961. These spectacular changes takes its title from this passage, Marshall Berman mean that questions about the nature and source writes that the modern world has created: “a of the astonishing power wielded collectively paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity; it pours us by 7.4 billion humans loom much larger today all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration than they did in Carr’s time. In this sense, big and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of history can be thought of as an origin story for the ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part Anthropocene Epoch of human history. of a universe in which, as Marx said: ‘all that is solid melts into air.’”37

37 Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: the Experience of Modernity (New York: Penguin, 1988, 1st published 1982), 15.

Journal of Big History Page 17 David Christian

We will need the broad scale of big history to how strange today’s world is may also give us see the Anthropocene clearly, because it is not a renewed appreciation for the insights and just a turning point in modern world history, understanding of our ancestors, who maintained over many millennia a much more stable as a whole, and even in the history of planet relationship with the biosphere as a whole. earth.but a significant Most contemporary threshold withinhistorical human scholarship history studies the last 500 years. The danger of this Big history is the first origin story for foreshortened perspective is that it can normalize all humans. If big history is an origin story, recent history, making the technologically and economically dynamic societies of recent centuries as a whole. Emerging as it does in a densely seem typical of human history in general. They it is also the first origin story for humanity are not. Their dynamism is extraordinary and constructed by, and available to, all human beings. exceptional. The very idea of history, of long- Whileinterconnected traditional world, origin it storiesis the first tried origin to sum story term change, is modern and, as John McNeill has over knowledge from particular communities shown, the scale of change in the modern era, and particularly since the mid twentieth century, really origin story that tries to sum over accumulated is “something new under the sun.”38 In contrast, knowledgeor regions or from cultural all parts traditions, of the world. this is theThat first most people in most human societies over the last alone suggests the wealth of information and the 200,000 years lived lives whose structures and astonishing richness of detail of a modern origin surroundings seemed relatively stable, because story. change was so slow that it could not be observed at the scale of a few generations. Traditional origin stories provided a unifying vision for particular communities, by highlighting Only within the capacious scales of big history is the ideas that different people shared, just as it possible to see clearly that the Anthropocene modern national histories provided a unifying Epoch is strange not just on human scales, but vision for nation states despite internal differences also on those of the history of planet Earth. This of language, culture, religion and ethnicity. In is perhaps why, in a recent article, a group of a similar way, the big history story can start to paleontologists suggest that the Anthropocene provide a unifying vision for humanity as a whole, Epoch counts as one of the three most important despite the many differences between regions, turning points in the history of the biosphere, classes, nations and cultural traditions. The along with the emergence of life, almost 4 construction and dissemination of a global origin billion years ago, and of multicellular life 600 story can help generate the sense of human unity million years ago.39 Never before has a single that will be needed as human societies navigate species dominated change in the biosphere as collectively through the global challenges of we humans do today, and never before has the the next few decades. Though the national and near future depended as it does today, on the cultural tribalisms that dominated Carr’s world decisions, insights, and whims, of a single species. are still very much present today, he would have Appreciating the strangeness of modern society been astonished to see, emerging alongside them, is vital if we are to tackle the global challenges it an origin story for humanity as a whole. poses for the near future. Understanding

38 For more on these claims, see David Christian, “History and Time,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 57, no. 3 (2011): 353-365, and John McNeill, Something New under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000). 39 The Anthropocene Review, (2015): 1-24.

Mark Williams, Jan Zalasiewicz, et. al., “The Anthropocene Biosphere”, Volume I Number 1 Page 18 What is Big History?

So interconnected is today’s world that the idea of More recently, the great American world historian, William McNeill, has made the point with equal salience that it lacked in Carr’s time, when eloquence: a unified humanity with a history of its own has a Humanity entire possess a commonality tothe be most either significant nation states human or communitiesculturally cohesive seemed which historians may hope to regions such as “the West” or the Muslim world, or the zones dominated by great traditional empires comprehend what unites any lesser such as China or India. Today, a sense of global understand just as firmly as they can citizenship, of belonging to the global community parochial historiography inevitably does, angroup. intelligible Instead world of enhancing history conflicts,might be as precision. (Generically speaking we are, after all, expected to diminish the lethality of aof remarkably humanity, is homogenous not just a matter species, of scientific so that the group encounters by cultivating a sense category, Homo sapiens that the category of “Chinese human being” or triumphs and tribulations of humanity as “American human being”has lacks.) a scientific Awareness precision of aof whole. individual This, identification indeed, strikes with me the as the what all humans share is increasingly a matter moral duty of the historical profession of self-preservation, particularly in a world in our time. We need to develop an with nuclear weapons. E.H. Carr wrote “What is ecumenical history, with plenty of History?” one year before the Cuban missile crisis, room for human diversity in all its when, according to President Kennedy, the odds complexity.42 of an all-out nuclear war lay “between one out of three and even.”40 As Wells understood, a universal history is the

H.G. Wells’ attempt to write a universal history in because, unlike national histories, big history 1919, when the horrors of the Great War were still natural vehicle for a unified history of humanity, vivid in his mind, was driven by a similar sense but as a single, and remarkably homogenous, of human unity. Peace, he argued, required new species.first encounters And it is humans a story that not ascan warring now be tribes, told with ways of thinking. It required: us understand the place of our species not just in . . .common historical ideas. Without theincreasing recent past,precision but in and the confidence, history of the and biosphere, can help such ideas to hold them together in and of the entire universe. harmonious co-operation, with nothing

nationalist traditions, races and peoples but narrow, selfish, and conflicting and destruction. This truth, which was apparentare bound to to that drift great towards philosopher conflict Kant a century or more ago . . . is now plain to the man in the street.41

40 Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999), 271. 41 GrahamH.G. Wells, Allison Outline and of Philip History, Zelikow vi. 42 William H. McNeill, “Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians,” The American Historical Review 91, no. 1 (Feb. 1986), 7.

Journal of Big History Page 19 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

Fred Spier University of Amsterdam1

Introduction A major source of misunderstandings may be This article is about similarities and differences the incorrect perceptions that appear to exist in the pursuit of academic research all across the humanities and social sciences pursue research, orwithin ought the to field do so, of andthe naturalvice versa. sciences I experienced of how the understandingdisciplines. It forms for all part its practitioners,of my efforts inboth the big field historiansof big history and to specialists find a common from all language the academic and sciences, and later also in the social sciences. Mostthat firsthand notably this while seems first toengaging be the perception in the natural that natural scientists are doing hard, serious Overfields the that course contribute of time, knowledge all these todifferent big history. academic disciplines have come to employ their could only turn into a serious science by using the science, while the rest is not, and that the rest times.own specialized Furthermore, methods some and of the languages, terms used, which such methods of the natural sciences (which are often sometimes overlap, while they do not at other misunderstood within the field of the humanities). same, yet they have acquired different meanings in the research subjects and, as a result, the methods differentas ‘system,’ academic ‘energy,’ arenas. and ‘meaning,’ may look the usedIn practice to pursue I have investigations, found, however, are thatdifferent, although the

All of that does not matter too much as long research is, in principle, exactly the same. Clearly, theunderlying academic approach study of of far how more to engagecomplex in subjects, academic as these disciplines stay apart while their problems that natural scientists never have to face. topractitioners bring all these understand disciplines each together other well into within one such as life and human societies, entails specific singletheir own coherent fields. account However, has the inevitably effort of ledbig tohistory a humanities, including the social sciences. But even need to confront these issues in an effort to shape thoughThis has the deeply research influenced subjects the and development the methods of the one single common language. This discussion has employed may be very different, the underlying barely begun, not least because the problem may result, currently many such misunderstandings detail.general approach of how to do research seems to seemnot yet to have abound. been sufficiently recognized. As a be identical. This will be discussed below in more This article is an elaboration of an essay dating all these issues. That can only be done in a long andIn this intensive contribution discussion I do not involving seek to a confront great many back to the 1980s. The first draft was written in 1984 while I was studying cultural anthropology acrossat the Free the sciences;University on Amsterdam the interests (Spier served 1984). by scholars. Here I will focus on only one aspect, doingIt dealt empirical with empirical research; academic and on research ethical questions all academic research, while, of course, I do not expect to present any final views about this topic. preparing my cultural anthropological and Yet it is my hope that this article will stimulate that might arise as a result. At that time I was havea discussion in common. with the aim to achieve a clearer understanding of what all academic researchers historical field research on religion and politics in Peru, which would hopefully involve living in an

1 I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for excellent suggestions on how to improve this article. On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

Andean village while studying its present and past. cultural anthropology (Spier 1987). Even though I felt it was important to reflect on these things now almost thirty years have passed since writing beforehand, because I wanted to understand as that essay, I still stand by the general view that Beforewell as studyingpossible whatcultural I was anthropology, setting out toI had do. was penned down at that time.

University. While introducing me to the natural yetThe reached 1984 reflections our university were writtenin the Netherlands. on a typewriter, sciencesreceived ranginga M.Sc. in from biochemistry physics and 1978 quantum at Leiden because the computer desktop revolution had not had included a considerable amount of research After my return from Peru in 1986, however, mechanics all the way to microbiology, this study during which I had shared life with Andean isolating a number of chemical compounds. As farmers who lived in circumstances that were into various fields, most notably synthesizing and ofin themany village ways church similar I tohad those transcribed of peasants ancient in the documentsEuropean Middle that had Ages, partially while beenin the consumed cold sacristy by a result, the intensive years between 1970 and 1977 that I spent in the Leiden laboratories had allowed me to gain a first-hand experience of how rodents, the computer revolution had taken place. revealingthe empirical discussions scientific that method I had workedbeen part in ofpractice, not least thanks to the many open and sometimes One of the first things that needed to be done was, therefore, mastering this brand new technology: awithin discussion the safe group confines that explored of those laboratories.the most recent My learning to use desktop computers with two ideasknowledge about was the historyfurther andshaped philosophy by taking of part science. in WordPerfect,large floppy disk and drives, the other one drive drive for for saving the MS- the DOS program and the text-processing program While studying cultural anthropology at the Free exciting but challenging technology my Andean files. Of course there was no Internet yet. On this

University Amsterdam in the 1980s, I took a few data were recorded and elaborated using the philosophy courses, which further improved WordPerfect program, with the aid of which also my views. All of that, including my growing muchmy improved more recent essay version on the scientificof WordPerfect method –still knowledge of how the social sciences worked in was written. This made it possible today, using a objectspractice, of provided investigation the intellectual and, as a result, background also the for my essay of 1984. I then felt that even though the my preferred word processor application–, to general approach across the sciences seemed to be effortlessly use those (now) ancient computer identical.methods of investigation, were very different, the files.

The essays were written in Dutch. As a result amongof discussions natural with scientists big historians, and academics especially from the After having returned from Peru in 1986, I regarding the seeming lack of understanding studiesconfronted in a myPeruvian 1984 ideasAndean with village my experience (Spier of pursuing cultural-anthropological and historical humanities about what they share while engaging in doing academic research, I began to wonder 1986). To my delight, I did not have to change whether it would be helpful to translate those a single idea. But I did find that the essay could soideas obvious into English. to me at This the timearticle that is the they result did not of that requiredbe enriched assignments with my experiences. for obtaining So my I wrote M.A. in effort. A few insights have been added that seemed an improved version, which became one of the need to be mentioned. Yet they may not always be Journal of Big History Page 21 Fred Spier obvious to practitioners of the humanities or to and regularities. In this approach, the leading elaboratereaders who certain are not aspects. academically trained. A few questions are: “how do certain things work, and other insights were added to illustrate or further how and why are these things happening the way they do?” Norbert Elias called this attitude ‘detachment,’ while Robert Pirsig uses the term The essay below is, therefore, a reworked version ‘classic mode of understanding’ (1976, p.67 ff.). of the first section of my 1987 essay, which In short: these are forms of rational thinking. interestsreflected servedon the empiricalby doing empirical academic researchresearch. as These underlying forms include a wide range: The second section, which was a reflection on the religious,daily reasoning, normative, all kinds ethical of formalized and philosophical regimes result, is not included here. of thought such as writing and musical notation; well as on ethical questions that might arise as a ways of understanding the world, all the way What does the pursuit of academic research down to the ways academics pursue research. consist of? distinguishes empirical academic research from Before discussing the pursuit of academic allThis the essay rest addressesof human experiencethe question: and what thought, research in more detail, it seems important to Before focusing 2 inand my how personal is it connected opinion, bothto it? direct experience make a fundamental distinction between two on this question I would like to emphasize that different ways in which humans face the world. The first way can be called ‘direct experience.’ asand equally thinking valuable. in terms of underlying forms are resultingEverybody feelings experiences can be the expressed, world in among a direct other way essential in our human existence, while I see them and reacts to it. Such experiences, as well as the music,things, dance,in daily decorations, conversation etc. and Direct with experience the aid of However different these two ways of approaching gestures of many kinds, but also in literature, the world may be, in practice they are always most humans live their lives most of the time. The connected. Surely, there is often, if not always, and the resulting reactions are the ways in which researchsome interplay performed between by academics. direct experience When I andam tryingthinking to inplay terms the guitar,of underlying for instance, forms, I needincluding some US philosopher RobertInvolvement Pirsig (1928- and ) Detachmentcalled this the ‘romantic mode of understanding’ (1976, p.66 notes and chords are structured on this musical ff.), while in his book instrument.knowledge of Yet underlying that is not form enough. about Playing how the music (1987) the German sociologist Norbert Elias (1897-1990) used the word ‘involvement’ to characterize this attitude. first of all involves trying to express and convey terms of underlying forms. While doing so, one certain feelings, in other words: direct experience. A second way of dealing the world is thinking in Without it, playing the guitar would yield only a technically-executed sequence of notes without maytakes describe distance and from explain one’s directthe observed daily experiences events any emotional value. We will find a similar and starts looking for underlying patterns that interplay when academics are pursuing research, but with a different emphasis on what

2 An anonymous reviewer pointed out that “Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ thinking may be similar, if not the same, including how natural selection may have generated methods for rapid reactions and also for slower, more careful thinking (rationality?)” (Kahneman 2011). Volume I Number 1 Page 22 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

types of feelings. In the formal academic approach distinguishesthe end result academic should look research like. The from first all question other that needs to be pursued is, therefore: what it is all about thinking in terms of underlying forms: regularities and generalizations of direct forms of thinking in terms of underlying forms, empirical observations. In the Anglo-Saxon and how did it emerge? humanitiesworld the term are seen‘science’ as rather has come different to mean academic the How did academic research emergence in ‘natural sciences,’ while the social sciences and the Europe? and Dutch such a distinction is not made. To avoid Over the course of many centuries, constellations anypursuits. confusion Yet in about language this areashere, thesuch term as German ‘science’ is

term is ‘academic research.’ This is all part of of people have emerged in Western Europe and therefore used very sparingly, while the preferred ofelsewhere underlying who forms have in given relation special to empiricalemphasis to common vocabulary that may be helpful to a rather strict approach of thinking in terms improvethe attempt communication of seeking to acrossfind an all unambiguous the academic disciplines. observations, while practicing and developing it in specific ways. This approach was first academies.institutionalized Over thein specific course housesof time, of also learning, other in terms of underlying forms are not regarded in Europe most notably universities and royal asAs science.mentioned In all before, societies, most for forms instance, of thinking there todayinstitutions in a great emerged many where research empirical institutions. science (in an increasingly broad sense) is practiced, such as are more or less formalized prescriptive rules concerning how to behave. In most, if not all states preceded by similar scholars and institutions such rules have been written down in the form of To be sure, the European universities were law, which today also includes huge amounts of jurisprudence. These regimes of thinking in terms in many parts of the world. Yet the European andof underlying prescribe formsthe dominant are not meantrules of to behavior, explain why model, especially the ‘Humboldtian’ model people behave the way they do. They simply define of open-minded research and teaching first theinstitutionalized early nineteenth by Wilhem century, von has Humboldt become very (1757- including what should happen if people do not 1835) and his colleagues at Berlin University in thatfollow are these not part rules. of This the processis only one of empirical example from academicthe large field research. of regimes Such regimesof underlying can, of thought course, influential, while it has been copied all around become a subject of academic research. the world. Because of its relentless emphasis on rational thinking, Robert Pirsig called the ofuniversity underlying system forms the about ‘Church empirically of Reason’ observed (1976, What are the fundamental requirements of realityp.140). is This the specificessence approach of the academic of thinking pursuit in terms of academic research? understanding reality.

Before continuing this discussion, it may be So what can be regarded as empirical academic research? To deserve that qualification, a regime of thinking in terms of underlying forms must useful to reflect a little on the meanings of the fulfil at least four strict requirements. . word ‘science.’ In Latin, ‘sciencia is derived from the verb ‘scio,’ which means both ‘to know’ and The first requirement is logical consistency ‘to understand.’ These words do not point to any The formulated regularities should follow the Journal of Big History Page 23 Fred Spier strict rules of logic, most notably that they never Because empirical observations are part of the contradict each other. Most, if not all, academics structures and those of others on internal and ofdomain underlying of direct form. experience, But not all this observations is what links are constantly testing both their own thought canthat be domain called with empirical the domain observations. of thinking Claims, in terms external logical consistency. In other words: a such as the appearance of gods may be called otherhypothesis established or theory theories must either,follow unlessthese rules the and personalfor instance, observations. to have witnessed But such certain observations events purposenot contradict is to undermine itself, while such it must a theory. not contradict cannot be called academic empirical observations as long as they cannot, in principle, be observed by other trained academics (or could have been

To my knowledge, the oldest extant standardized haveforms universal of logic in application. Europe were While formulated most academics by witnessed by them, if they had been present Aristotle (384-322 BCE). These rules appear to when that happened). In other words, empirical of them appear to be able to apply these rules ofobservations empirical observations must be social and events even withintheir the may lack formal logical training, most, if not all, descriptionsworld of academia. may – andTo be often sure, do the – differ.interpretations ingrainedmore or less to someintuitively extent with in our great bodies success. as part It may of For instance, the claim to have seen a stationary thewell long be that evolutionary this form ofhistory thinking of our is genetically species, and very bright star in a very particular place in

deemed unusually important is not, by itself, an perhaps in many earlier life forms as well, as a the sky about 2000 years ago during an event surviveresult of the their onslaught attempts of to the map process the world of biological and act other observers. In consequence, astronomers sufficiently successfully while using those maps to mayempirical search observation, old records unless for such it ispossible confirmed events by evolution first outlined by Charles Darwin (1809- It1882) is important and Alfred to seeRussel that Wallace this requirement (1823-1913). of that were observed and recorded by others. consistency, including no contradictions, is an Alternatively, researchers may seek to reconstruct assumption imposed on the academic method. unusual events in the sky during that particular rareperiod conjunctions of time based of planets on empirical and stars, data oras perhapswell as ruled out that nature may be contradictory from explodingon their knowledge stars called of supernovae.celestial processes, such as Although deemed unlikely, it cannot completely be time to time. So we may want to keep our eyes the other observation into a possible empirical open for such possible events. If we find them, it observation,If academics findeven such though events, the interpretations this may turn Thewould second fundamentally requirement alter is thethat academic a theory ormethod. hypothesis must be able to explain, or at least provide some structure to, empirical observations. may be very different. However, the claim that academics,a bright star because stood still no empiricallyin the sky for observed a longer can be seen as part of more general structures. period in time is likely to be contested by This ismeans the ultimate that empirically-observed goal of empirical academic situations research. virtuallystars have right ever above done thethat, North with Polethe exception and, as a of Polaris, the pole star, which is currently situated

result, appears (almost) stationary in the sky as

Volume I Number 1 Page 24 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

uncertain to some extent, although in many cases seen by earthbound observers. Yet around 2000 theThis uncertainty implies that may the beresults limited. of science For instance, are always occupiedyears ago Polaris’sthat was currentnot the positioncase, while above there the was, the great improvement over the past decades of Northto our Pole.knowledge, no other star at that time that concerning the construction and operation of scientific insights and their practical applications one particular theory should be considered number of serious accidents per passenger and ‘better’This raises than the another question one. of The how great to decide majority when of airplanes has led to a remarkable decrease in the than they have ever been. Apparently, these per distance covered, which are now far lower academics think that the criterion is simplicity: terms, in the sense that they contribute to building numberthe preferred of empirical theory observations.contains the fewest This principle, general andinsights operating are ever airplanes more reality-congruent, that do not randomly in Elias’s rules while structuring and explaining the largest accident happens, huge efforts are made using called parsimony, is also known as ‘Occam’s razor,’ fall out of the sky. And as soon as a serious clearly.named after the English cleric, William of Ockham in order to prevent this from happening again. (c.1287–1347), who formulated this principle very academic research to find out what went wrong

‘explaining’ means. It turned out not to be very similarThat is howexamples academic could research be given, works, all indicating and this Furthermore, this raises the question of what thehas enormousled to this remarkableadvances in success.uncertainty A great reduction many great many scholars have sought to clarify this, easy to answer that question unequivocally. A not all academic pursuits have led to similar that has taken place within those fields. However, including Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), followed by Prussian philosopher Thesuccesses. third major More requirementabout that below. is that empirical Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the “Wiener Kreis” (Vienna Circle) philosophers, Austrian-British contradict our hypotheses or theories. In this philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994), and US data that are seen as sufficiently solid should not inscientist any detail. and philosopherBut clearly, for Thomas achieving Kuhn a good(1922- understanding1996). I do not ofwant academic to pursue research this question it is very here context, Karl Popper used the word ‘falsification,’ with which he meant that when one single possibilities, and limitations of explanations are. thisempirical should observation lead to the consideredrejection of sufficientlythat particular important to carefully explore what the nature, thoughtsolid is found structure. to be in contradiction with a theory,

This means that all hypotheses and theories are This also raises the question of how much empirical certainty theories would provide. Sir Karl Popper pointed out that because we will in principle ‘open-thought regimes,’ because all never be able to know all empirical data, we will theories can in principle be tested with the aid data.never In be consequence, able to formulate structuring with absolute and explaining certainty of empirical observations. These open-thought any general rules that will cover all empirical regimes are in stark contrast with ‘closed-thought some extent. regimes,’ within which any event can be explained empirical data will always remain uncertain to without ever casting any doubt on the underlying thought structures. Examples of closed-thought

Journal of Big History Page 25 Fred Spier regimes can, most notably, but certainly not exclusively, be found in religions. writing his book, yet he did not mention them then in his writings. One may wonder whether these principle be open to rejection if it does not academic developments may have stimulated Kuhn conformIn other words:to established an academic empirical theory observations. must in to undertake his research, even though he may not haveobservations been sufficiently never yield aware absolute of them facts. at that All time. The Structure of Scientific Furthermore, as Kuhn explained, empirical RevolutionsIn practice, however, as Kuhn observed in his becoming academic observations. This inevitably theground-breaking midst of unexplained book observations that are introducesobservations elements are always of uncertainty. interpreted As before a result, temporarily (1970), cast aside. theories By slightly tend tochanging exist in or the description and interpretation of empirical observations may change over time. A practical may be accommodated, at least for a certain periodrefining of theories, time. For many instance, recalcitrant the epicycles observations used by Ptolemy to explain the planetary movements in his exampleIt is frompossible physics to determine may clarify the this: concentration of compounds in a solution by measuring the amount of model of the solar system with Earth at its center light that is absorbed by that compound. offer a famous example of such a refinement. In The more light ‘disappears,’ the more theoryfact, such and attempts empirical at observationsrefining theories arise. happen Most ‘stuff ‘is present in that particular most of the time when discrepancies between an experiment should never assume academics are understandably wary of quickly thatsolution. by just But reading the scientist the meter who (empirical does such asabandoning a result of a biological theory that and has social worked evolutionary well in the pressurespast. Such thata tendency our species may haswell experienced have emerged during its history. observation) the concentration of that compound is known with absolute certainty, because possibly: 1. The meter compoundsis not calibrated in the correctly; solution 2that the also glass Yet, as Thomas Kuhn further explained, some vial or the lens is dirty; 3. there are other observations turn out to be so difficult to reject absorbed light and concentration is or accommodate within a theory that they may differentabsorb light; from 4. expected, The relationship and so on. between arelead advanced to a state for of chaosexplaining within these the discipline.observations To overcome this unpleasant situation, new theories This list of uncertainties concerning the interpretation of empirical observations in different, often more all-encompassing ways. Over the course of time, this will lead to the replacement of the old theories by the new is endless. If one reflects long enough on ones. The discovery of the photo-electric effect interpretationsthese things, new of aspectsthem. may be found that and Albert Einstein’s explanation of it, which may influence one’s observations or one’s earned him a Nobel prize in 1921, leading to This is the case for all empirical observations. No suchthe emergence a change. Alsoof quantum the emergence mechanics of big (which bang single fact can be established beyond any doubt, cosmologyEinstein did and not plate like), tectonics offers a clear can be example understood of simply because all empirical observations entail in such ways. Interestingly, these novel academic forms of interpretation (cf. also Kant 1976). Just insights were gaining ground while Kuhn was think of what a piece of rock might look like to a Volume I Number 1 Page 26 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

lay person without any knowledge of chemistry or beYet read both as influences informing are us always both about present the inresult academic of geology; what it would have looked like to a geologist reports. As a result, such accounts can always chemicala century andago; geological and what conceptsit would lookand methods.like to today’s of the particular researchers. In fact, I stimulate geologists trained to observe them with the latest myacademic students research to engage and inabout both the types backgrounds of reading. observationsAnd, following are Kuhn’s described argument, and interpreted this situation not require accounts of the researchers’ personal becomes even more serious when empirical experiences,Even though anythe resultsunderstanding of academic of the research process may of with the aid of competing theories. As a result, academics from different fields may not be able suchacademic personal research stories. does require such knowledge. to communicate effectively with each other That is why I myself am always very interested in any more. In consequence, as Kuhn argued, observations.the transition from an older to a newer theory may also involve a redefinition of empirical How does such often hard-gained knowledge become academic knowledge? To be recognizedthe fourthas such, fundamental this knowledge requirement needs to beof academicshared and This uncertainty has worried academics, because discussed among colleagues. In other .words, Inventing beforethey feel the that Second their World fields oughtWar scientists to be built united on more secure foundations. In trying to tackle that issue, knowledge is that it is socially shared of science based on pure experience. Their huge theories and making empirical observations in the ‘Wiener Kreis’ sought to establish a theory discussedmay well be and a privateaccepted affair. among But academics,they turn into at least toacademic some extent. knowledge A famous only anecdote after having may become illustrate formefforts of and theoretical spectacular interpretation failure have do emphasized not exist. In that pure empirical observations without any this: th century, a competition among complicatesother words, the theories testing and of competingempirical observations theories. are always linked to some extent, which greatly In the 17 scientists was going on in London concerning the question of who could In other words: within empirical science it is explain why Earth’s orbit around the impossible to make an absolute distinction sun was an ellipse. One day in 1684, between ‘objects’ and ‘subjects,’ simply because the famous physicist Edmond Halley Theythe results may represent of academic the research best available always academic consist (1656-1742) visited Isaac Newton descriptionsof images of thetoday. world But produced they never by represent humans. the (1642-1726), who was then living a rather secluded life in Cambridge. Halley and should never be seen as such. In consequence, posed Newton the question: “what is the only possible interpretation of the world itself, shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun?” both the observer and the observed, even though based on Robert Hooke’s suggestion that oftenthese greatimages efforts always are inform made usto pushsomething the balance about the attraction between the sun and the Earth followed the law of inverse square of the distance. “An ellipse,” replied thein such observers. a way that the information is mostly about Newton. “How do you know that?” the observed world and as little as possible about was the next question. “I calculated it,” replied Newton. He claimed to have solved that problem 18 years earlier, Journal of Big History Page 27 Fred Spier

persuaded him to elaborate this idea research and its results, even though a good but was unable to find his notes. Halley way beyond the formal approach of academic contributed to arriving at such decisions. sciencemathematically, Philosophiae which Naturalis led to one Principia of knowledge of academic research may well have Mathematicathe most famous (Mathematical books ever Principleswritten in of Natural Philosophy) theIn other social words, possibilities these choices and limitations depend onof allthe the published in 1687. peoplefeelings, involved value judgments, in such activities. their knowledge, All of this and At that moment, Newton’s private efforts became more generally known, and thus Afterturned having into formulated academic these knowledge. four fundamental underlyingbelongs to the forms. domain As a ofresult, direct these experience choices as can well requirements, it has become possible to offer as perhaps to other fields of thinking in terms of the principles of formal academic research. While never entirely be legitimized only by referring to a definition of empirical academic research, as follows: ofacademic investigation. research is a tool for achieving specific goals in specific ways, it is not driving the process of“Empirical underlying academic forms aimed research at formulating consists of As soon as the choice for a certain object of generala very specific principles form that of thought can structure in terms and investigation has been made, this determines to explain empirical observations. These some extent the academic insights and methods underlying principles must be logically that are going to be used. It is not a good idea, for instance, to do chemical experiments entirely in a continuous process of confrontation based on cultural anthropological insights. And consistent, while they must be obtained it is equally unproductive to investigate social evidence and the established theories. behavior by exclusively using theories of the Thewith results both the of availablethese efforts empirical must be

chemical bond. It would not make a great deal of Non-rationalshared with influences other academics.” in academic research? sense to take Peruvian farmers apart and separate DNAtheir moleculesmolecules byin anobserving ultracentrifuge certain organisms.if one wanted research just mentioned, it seems important to know their social situation, or seek to isolate Before exploring the definition of academic Yet comparisons of theories and methods from engagingto pay some in suchattention investigations. to the fact that also non- What is Sociology?, for rational aspects are extremely important while different fields may lead to new and interesting First of all, every empirical researcher investigates insights. In his book instance, Norbert Elias fruitfully compared research topic selected, and not another one, molecular bonds with human bonds while something. But what? Why was that particular thatadvancing he had his studied theory medicine of ‘human before figurations’ becoming a sociologist.(1978a, p.72). He could do so thanks to the fact investigationor nothing at isall? done Such because choices of can the never importance attachedbe determined to it. It in is totally a choice rational determined ways. Theby the researcher and/or by the persons facilitating the Also, while engaging in academic empirical research, non-rational aspects abound. Why, research. As a result, making such choices goes for instance, would a researcher follow certain Volume I Number 1 Page 28 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

that person observe certain particular aspects such a situation, the investigator’s thoughts and research strategies and not others? Why would helpful to enter the field as a complete outsider. In that many questions are considered too obvious to hypothesesand not others? be formulated How would and all notof that others, be done out of reflexes have not yet been shaped to the extent in ways that work well? And why would certain instance,ask, while in new physics solutions young may researchers be hard to are see. usually the thousands of possible hypotheses? And where This is a major reason why, I think, that, for would all these ideas come from? the ones who produce the most refreshing The answer ‘logical thinking’ is not fully insights. As Norbert Elias explained in his insightssatisfactory. tend Everyone to appear who quite has suddenly, seriously much engaged memoirs, growing up as Jew in Germany helped in empirical academic research knows that such him to analyze societies more at a distance. moments, the researcher intuitively feels that butThe livingworld in historian, the United William States H. helped McNeill, him once to see like the proverbial light that goes on. At such thingswrote methat that many starting of his outAmerican as Canadian colleagues citizen the solution for that particular problem might seemed to miss. And in my Peru research it this is the direction that should be taken, or what very little about that country before starting look like. The next step is to check very carefully was very helpful, in retrospect, that I knew and argue whether these ideas are indeed evidenceacademically and correct.existing Thistheories is done using by rationalpainstakingly my investigation. It allowed me to look at what confronting them with all the available empirical aI witnessedgreat many with dumb a fresh, questions often thatconfused, no one look, else taking far less for granted as a result, while asking ideas.thinking, and quite often, also by making new observations that may, or may not, confirm those would have posed who was more familiar with This long and often painful process of careful those situations. Of course, I worked very hard to improve my knowledge, which went hand-in- hand with almost continuous observations and Itrational, is absolutely logical essential reconstruction to turn takes such placeideas afterinto discussions with everybody who was willing to science.the new Duringidea has the emerged process, as most a result ideas of areintuition. enter into a conversation with me. All of that processwas driven in action. by intuition and personal motivation. the researcher into further pursuing her or his The following personal experience shows such a investigations,rejected, while includingthe ones that further survive observations may guide and At a certain point in time I began to experiments. But the ideas for doing such things been that had led to the construction of thewonder great what many the ancient social Incaprocess agricultural had rigorouscome first logical of all asreconstructions a result of intuition. of a path In otherthat is terraces on steep mountain slopes in words: academic research consists of a great many places such as Pisac and Machu Picchu that seem to defy gravity. I had visited Surely,found by having following such one’sintuition intuition. is only possible these terraces had been built in such those places myself, and wondered why dealwhen of the time researcher mulling over has becomethese problems. well versed That in is aher most or hisimportant field, often precondition. after having But spent even a thoughgreat seemingly impossible places, and why not in places that were lower down the valley where they were easier to knowledge of the field is essential, it may also be construct and quite likely to be more Journal of Big History Page 29 Fred Spier

part of our biological and social evolution humans

productive (which was the case near mechanism in our brains and bodies that helps the Andean village of Zurite were I have become equipped with a solution-finding lived). No one seemed to have posed good’ solutions out of the great many possibilities suchthose questions questions, in to any my of knowledge. the Spanish I us to come up with, and select for, ‘sufficiently chronicleswas not aware either. of any references to that may exist, while combining knowledge from different domains. I am not familiar with any studies that elucidate how this mechanism might In Zurite I had often witnessed the work, or how it may have emerged. But that way in which many public projects mustprobably be a only neurological reflects my and own molecular ignorance basis of forthese it. calledwere executed, faina. I had namely also noticed with the that aid of fields. But surely this mechanism exists, and there competitioncompeting workgroups among these within groups a regime for the prestige of having done the best job academic method is indispensable for achieving very much contributed to driving the successIn sum: althoughin empirical a sound research, knowledge the practice of the of process to its successful completion. Not doing it is determined by choices that are not

appeared to have fought more effectively least because all armies known to me entirely based on the formal method. Taking one’s intuition seriously offers a major link between the when subdivided into competing groups, world of direct experience and that of thinking in ofI began competition to wonder to construct whether thethese Incas ‘high terms of underlying form. How to do this well is prestige’would have terraces. employed In those a similar places, process all the central theme of Pirsig’s brilliant book. very strategically located, military To what extent can similarities in academic research be found all across academia? Also in an effort to prevent idleness from garrisons would have been stationed. explained earlier, nothing has yet been said about mischief, these Inca soldiers might have itsBy contents,defining academic and nothing research either in about the way the choices beenkicking obliged in and to leading compete to allin constructingkinds of for a certain type of investigation. All theories can be called ‘academic’ as long as they conform after their completion, so that they could to the general requirements mentioned. In other those terraces and grow food on them of empirical academic research, from the natural Zuriteprovide during their owninformal sustenance. conversations, When I words, the definition seems valid for all branches theirfloated faces this lighted hypothesis up. They to farmers immediate from sciences all the way to the humanities. had been done. This does not provide agreed that this could have been how it itBoth is often in the thought field of that the naturalthe natural sciences sciences and in constitutethe field of ‘harder,’ the humanities ‘more rigorous’ and social forms sciences plausibilityany proof, of to course, this hypothesis that it was (cf. done Spier of empirical academic research. From the in such a way, but it does add some general nature of academic research this is a 1994, p.64, note 3). misunderstanding.point of view advocated Yet in here, terms in of terms content of the this may often be a correct assessment, depending One may wonder how the seemingly magical appearance of such ideas works. Apparently, as Volume I Number 1 Page 30 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

theorieson what oneand wouldreproducible call ‘hard’ data. and This ‘rigorous,’ situation of to use statistical methods with greater success. iscourse, at least such partially as the theexistence result ofof thegenerally-accepted fact that natural scientists have a much easier job than theirMore scientistsin general, to the formulate lower levels more of precise complexity natural their colleagues in the humanities, because they involved in the natural sciences have allowed investigate far less complex aspects of reality, successfullytheoretical principles to predict with the outcomesgreater success of controlled experimentsthan elsewhere or thewithin nature academia, of relatively and use simple them while scholars of human culture deal with the Yetmost that complex situation aspects should of notreality necessarily known to cause us. increasing human control over the rest of nature. the humanities, including the social sciences, to aspects of reality. All of that hasInvolvement led to an ever- and be less rigorous in terms of empirical academic Detachment Yet, as Norbert Elias argued in , doing all these things with greater research. Thomas Kuhn argued –and I fully agree detachment has taken a long time. Only about with him– that this difference is mainly caused by 500 years ago, many astronomers, for instance, the fact that within the social sciences it has not were also astrologers, while chemists, including theyet beenmain possiblecause for to this establish situation generally-accepted may be that the Sir Isaac Newton, were often involved in what theories, or paradigms, as Kuhn called them. While is now called ‘alchemy’ (which in Arabic simply so much more complex than those examined by means “the chemistry”). Many of them were humanities deal with aspects of reality that are seeking to transmutate chemical elements, most notably making gold out of cheaper and more natural scientists, which makes it much more electromagneticabundant metals. force, Little instead did they of know the strong that they force. difficult to establish general paradigms, this is were manipulating the wrong force, namely the not necessarily the end situation. This will be elaborated below. Both forces were still unknown at that time. It has taken centuries of huge efforts and increasing Yet it is, in my view, a misunderstanding to exampledetachment may to clarify reach this. today’s knowledge and think that the natural sciences are essentially control over the rest of nature. The following indifferent the humanities from the impossible.humanities Surely,which wouldthe I experienced such a transition of objectsmake the of establishmentinvestigation are of generalof another theories nature, organic chemistry from basically a and this requires different research methods. As mentioned earlier, it is not a good idea to cookbook science into a fully-fledged living nature or human societies. Furthermore, Onescience of my first lab hand assignments during my in second organic becauseresearch atoms atoms and and molecules, molecules starsthe same and wayplanets, as year while studying chemistry in 1972. compounds called glutarimides. These chemistry was to synthesize a series of rocks and oceans, do not show emotions and do no commercial value or any other social assignnot communicate meanings to with the eachrest ofother nature, or with it is themuch are fairly basic compounds with little or easierresearcher, to investigate while they them do not academically have intentions from aor greater distance. And the huge numbers of atoms bondsimportance. of these My compounds supervisor usingwanted to thetake most measurements recent technology of certain (nuclear chemical and molecules involved, which are often very similar, allow researchers in the natural sciences magnetic resonance spectroscopy). Journal of Big History Page 31 Fred Spier

become such standard behavior in the natural no recent recipes appeared to exist Because they were of little interest, the library and explored the chemical sciences that it is followed without much, if any, for synthesizing them. So I went to reflection even by newcomers in the field such as me. The following example may illustrate this. literature, which also at that time was glutarimides mentioned earlier, I tried to that.well organized.And sure enough, My search I came took across me As part of my attempts to synthesize back to the 1880s and even earlier than seemed never to have been described; make N-Cl glutarimide. This compound recipes for synthesizing some of these compounds by well-known chemists. at least I could not find any data about At that time, organic chemistry was not thisit. When led to I triedan explosion. to synthesize Fortunately, it using an theyet welldiscipline understood of organic theoretically. chemistry In had Iapproach had carried analogous out the toexperiment N-Cl succinimide, in a doing so, I realized that in the meantime, safe and protected environment. After

undergone a transition from what looked coming out of the glass reaction vessel like a trial-and-error cookbook approach watching strange bubbles and fumes discipline.without a clear theoretical underpinning into a well-established theoretical through a protective glass window, I warned my supervisor. At the moment that he appeared, the explosion took Surely,Howe could all academics we achieve are greater human detachment beings, and in the littleplace. rabbit I still chasingremember its usmother. running away, humanities while engaging in academic research? me jumping after this huge guy like a emotions. Yet over the course of time, natural None of that appeared in the lab report, doing science always involves dealing with one’s researchscientists reports. have learned Their toaccounts take distance focus on from the their however (I still have it). It only offers a detached emotions, which usually do not end up in their description of the chemical events that took place. That was considered the important result. Nobody inresults their ofpersonal investigations accounts as andwell histories, as on the if methods they took any notice of my possible emotions either used to obtain them. Their feelings may show up as a result of this explosion – I was completely The Double on my own in dealing with that. Such aspects areHelix willing to write them. A famous example of were simply not part of the pursuit of academic such personal memories is the book research at that time. It also made me wonder (1981) written by US scientist James Watson researcherswhether such might an explosion have done was similar ever reportedthings. (1928- ), which tells his personal account of how in the chemical literature, and if not, how many the structure of DNA was discovered in 1952-53 and is, not reported in the academic literature. I together with FrancisMolecular Crick (1916-2004) Biology of the and Gene amMore not in going general, to purse it raised that the subject question here. of But what the is, others. But in their scientific articles, and also in increasing separation over the past centuries Watson’s textbook (1970), which was part of my first-year chemistry reporting, including not reporting failures, might education at Leiden University, these stories and bebetween an interesting personal line experiences of research. and academic emotions were entirely absent.

The large separation between detached academic reporting and dealing with one’s emotions has Volume I Number 1 Page 32 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

A similar distance is also noticeable in academic are employing certain theories, they are still divided reports in the humanities. Yet it happens quite into a great number of competing schools, as Thomas regularly, also in big history accounts, that such years ago. To be sure, there have been efforts to develop Kuhngeneral observed theories more of human than fifty behavior. In my accounts are spiced up with the author’s personal ‘good’emotions and and ‘bad’ value actors judgments, are. In doing such so, as suchhow currently offers the best available option. But even accounts‘amazing’ combine certain developments personal feelings are, andor who personal the thatopinion, promising Norbert theory Elias’s is process still in its sociology infancy, or so it

turn it into a general theory of human behavior. unacceptablevalue judgments in the with natural academic sciences, reporting. although Doing seems to me, and much work needs to be done to suchthat sort statements of thing may is now appear considered in popular totally science universitiesAnd that work that will enable only thembe done to dowhen so andsufficient accept numbers. thenumbers results. of gifted scholars will obtain positions at books, because that might lead to better sales It is often said that in the natural sciences the natural sciences and the humanities. It does Let’s return to the comparison between the that there is less solidity in the humanities, most interplay between empirical observations and notablyseem correct, a paucity as natural of hard scientists data or good often theories. remark, theories leads to new empirical predictions that Surely, as said before, the humanities are studying predictioncan serve to may test indeed the theories, exist in while some this branches would of not be the case in the humanities. This lack of sociology it turned out to be possible to predict manythe most layers complex of interpretations aspects of nature, of meanings which do and certainthe humanities. aspects ofYet the by past employing that had Elias’s not yet process intentions,have feelings including and opinions, many typeswhile ofthere uncertain are often been investigated, as some of us involved in this information, if not outright deceit. As a result, this inevitably leads to a great many layers of approach discovered at the end of the 1980s and Itearly seems 1990s to me (for that some by examples,further developing see: Spier this 1994). interpretations. Far fewer experiments are theory,This was there a pleasant is a good and chance encouraging that its surprise.predictive thepossible, numbers while of the‘objects,’ ones thathumans, are performed involved are are usuallymuch more much artificial smaller in and character. much more Furthermore, varied and Guns, Germs and Steel power will be enhanced as well. In the Epilogue to in the humanities and social sciences far less his book (1997), US scholar reliablecomplex. and All insightful.of this makes statistical approaches Jared Diamond made a very similar point. Why would there be less detachment in the I humanities? repeatn addition, themselves while studying exactly. This human is not societies unique in to the the past or present these processes will never The main reason why there are no general biology, and astronomy, in fact in all studies of theories yet within the humanities, following historicalhumanities. processes In Earth very science, similar climatology, situations geology, can be Elias’s argument, is that there has not yet been enough detachment within many of these Firstdisciplines. of all, there Why not,seems one to wonders? be a resistance among found. Yet many of those fields have developed their certain sections of the humanities against using paradigmatic theories, while the humanities have not yet done so. And when scholars of human societies Journal of Big History Page 33 Fred Spier theories, because their objects of investigation are deemed so complex that theories simply Any researcher would do wise, therefore, to keep one’s eye open for what can be observed and would do them sufficient justice. Such concerns theoryreflect onemployed. it, especially That whenis not somethingeasy. Most scientistsseems to are understandable but may not be warranted. If maybe wrong tend toor pushseems out to suchfall entirely unpleasant outside feelings of the and ofone a longdoes processnot try, oneof trial will and never error, succeed. including Surely, a observations, or may not see or feel them at all. greatsuch general deal of scholarlytheories will discussion. only emerge And becauseas a result a Yet as a result, they may never discover something considerable number of grand theories, such as

really new. appetiteMarxism ofand many Social practitioners Darwinism, in were the humanitiesproposed to be in their infancy. Furthermore, it may also forthat trying did not again. work very well, this has soured the happenCurrently, from many time socio-scientific to time that social theories scientists still seem

Yet even though historians and others may reject theories or sparsely use them, they must have seek to adapt their data to their theories, not least by omitting data that do not fit the picture very well. This is not entirely uncommon in the them somewhere in the back of their minds. If natural sciences either. But in that field, it is far not, how could these scholars decide what is more common to engage in critical reflections, important to mention and what is not? How would including self-reflections, concerning what does they make those choices out of the zillions of or does not work. Yet as Kuhn emphasized, it may potential data? In my view it is better to put one’s be very difficult to obtain acceptance of fresh ways amongtheoretical sociologists cards openly but also on theamong table, some so to social speak, of understanding the world, not least because so anthropologistsso that they can openlyand economists, be discussed. theories Especially are far maymany be academics reluctant haveto abandon invested them. their whole lives in more accepted. Yet also in these disciplines a great working with the established theories, while they In addition, it occasionally happens in the social made to unify them. many schools exist, while few attempts, if any, are ideas are adopted as structuring principles or sciences and the field of history that intuitive testing them against all the available evidence and The theory-driven approach offers great theorieshypotheses using without strict carefullyrational thought. examining In otherthem by advantages, not least that it makes clear what is at stake and what its strengths and potential weaknesses are. Furthermore, it can show more aidwords, of a suchcareful intuitive rational ideas logical emerging reconstruction. out of direct This clearly which information is lacking (which is mayexperience lead to are rhetorically not sufficiently appealing checked arguments with the that, biggerusually picture by far the in mind, largest these portion). insights If one may relies easily on documentary studies without keeping such a Iton seems further to inspection,me that in this are respect not sufficiently the natural rigorous. get lost. In other words, theories are very helpful sciences are much more advanced than the social for focusing on the bigger picture while helping to solve a great many smaller puzzles. sciences and the humanities, because such natural- theBut legitimateas Thomas problems Kuhn emphasized, are and, in theories doing so, are thoroughlyscientific ideas discussed are usually after muchhaving more reached rigorously the public potentiallyalso constraining, exclude because other problems they define and what questions. domain.tested before Of course, making all themof this public, may entail while serious they are

Volume I Number 1 Page 34 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines problems of understanding each other, as Thomas It is surely easier to do so in the natural sciences than in the humanities, because they are so much understand others. But based on my experiences thereKuhn emphasized,can be little or including no doubt the in willingnessmy mind that to this to time claims of originality in the humanities approach is currently far more rigorously pursued in more structured and well organized. Yet from time the natural sciences than in the humanities. It seems, therefore, of utmost importance appear not to be not sufficiently backed up by to rigorously test hypotheses equally in the happening.overviews of Surely, previous the materialsknowledge are that more clearly spread humanities before launching them into the public outwas over available. disciplines I cannot and be sources sure about and aswhy a result this is the available information; engaging in further domain. This includes: checking them against all much more difficult to trace and access. But we undermining, the hypotheses; and engaging in now live in a time in which a great deal of such investigations to find evidence in support of, or knowledge is almost instantly available. This On the Origin of improveoffers excellent the chances chances of authors within the building humanities upon Speciesefforts to predict the past elsewhere. In biology, to set the record straight. Doing so would greatly Charles Darwin’s famous book, a more systematic accumulation of academic be great, (1859) or so itoffers seems an to excellent me, if this example type of of each other’s knowledge, and thus help to achieve such a scrutinizing self-critical attitude. It would the improvement of our academic insights. knowledge and, in consequence, more progress in approach would also become dominant within the Furthermore, it happens from time to time that humanities as a whole. personal political and/or social preferences seem Surely it is not always necessary to explicate the social scientists employ theories in which the Butgeneral it does theories seem -important no chemist to or have physicist such theories would do that either in their more specific investigations. to be percolating. Although it will obviously be desirableimpossible to to me take to tryfull to distance avoid such from a one’sbias as own in the back of one’s academic mind, so to speak, muchsocio-cultural as possible. and Thispersonal requires background, a great deal it seems of and to share them with others as soon as someone asks for them. That is what natural scientists do. mayHaving also a theoryhelp to inimprove the back the of quality one’s mind of the and self-reflection, detachment, and discussion, and analysisregularly by consulting structuring it while it, and doing by using the researchit as a preferences.also a willingness This canto allow be a painfulcertain process,insights asthat I heuristic device. may not correspond with one’s own personal

have experienced myself. But by allowing this to Tohappen, be sure, the all analysis reconstructions may become of reality better, and that its is: It has also struck me that in the natural-scientific more reality congruent, as Norbert Elias called it. literature the reporting of fresh results always starts with a summary of previous knowledge. In discussionpast will always and further remain improvement. representations of reality. doing so, it provides an outline of what is new and In consequence, they will always be open to thewhat social is already sciences known. and theAlthough humanities, the mentioning it seems to of previous knowledge is certainly not absent in What Asis Sociology? mentioned before, I think that Norbert Elias’s me that especially articles in journals often lack processa general sociology, theory that explained seems to in behis as book, free as this aspect (including this article), while books currently possible (1978), from offers personal a good political example or of may sometimes not sufficiently do so either.

Journal of Big History Page 35 Fred Spier personal value judgments, other than that it

allcertain the time types and of thinkingnever more in terms than that. of underlying In other appears to be a good theory for analyzing human forms, while no single scientist is only a scientist tobehavior. explain And changing it seems standards like that of because behavior it seemsand earlier, the results of academic research are by to work in practice. Elias used it, for instance, words, as a result of the requirements mentioned direct personal experience. religionstate development and politics of in what Peru became during Franceits entire necessity much more limited than the world of (1978b, 1982, 1983). I myself used it to analyze acceptedknown history and discussed at all levels at theof society University (Spier of Cusco In socio-scientific and historical accounts this 1994-95). Interestingly, my analyses were readily distinction is often not very clearly drawn. Surely, it is much more difficult within the humanities to (UNSAAC) in 1996 and 1997 when I went there take distance from emotions, not least because the to present them. Apparently in Cusco there was natureobjects asof studiedinvestigation by astronomers, have them andphysicists may show and sign,some or cross-cultural so it seems to acceptance me. Other ofscholars these ideas have for chemiststhem to you, do notwhether have feelings.you like themFor biochemists or not. Lifeless and understanding their own reality, which is a good of social studies. as soon as they start to investigate living things used Elias’s theory for engaging in a great variety thatbiologists, do have however, feelings. this Another may turn personal into a example problem may illustrate this. aYet successful a great deal theory of theoretical of human history.work still But needs the As part of my biochemistry study I had to be done to turn Elias’s process sociology into to test the brains of rats for certain potential seems to be there. What is needed now, experiment. For doing so, these animals I think, is to compare the existing studies and substances. This was a demonstration discuss what has been achieved and what is still and because of possible students’ lacking. But if a better theory appears, that would needed to be killed. Because of this, forbe greatthe best as well. possible Surely, theoretical the goal explanationsshould never ofbe to ourstick common to one particular past. theory, but instead to look sensitivities, we were given the choice of opting out, which I did, because I could not see any reason for killing animals to Engaging in academic research do experiments that were only meant to Because practitioners of academic research use Ibe still a demonstration, remember the resentmentwhile they would I felt not yield any new and useful knowledge. inthis terms method of underlying to achieve forms,what they at least see foras the certain best about this, while I usually felt no such possible representations of the world and its past plants.resistance I did in feel experimenting apprehensive, with though, lifeless aboutnature, using or with dangerous microorganisms chemicals, and purposes, the scientific enterprise as whole is including radioactive tracers. Yet in such bylimited contrast, as a resultincluding of the all first the feelingsthree requirements and reactionsmentioned that above. it engenders, The world is of not direct limited experience, by these requirements and is, in consequence, much larger cases we were not offered an opt out, but in scope. Furthermore, most people on this planet were advised instead to use protective are not scientists, even though they engage in measures (which were not always used).

Volume I Number 1 Page 36 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

Surely, also these scholars need a great deal of or felt about these things. I do not remember I do not know what my fellow students thought orinvolvement social and inecological their work, circumstances while they may that be any discussions with any of them concerning candealing all raise with important dangerous ethical substances, questions. procedures, Such problemsthis issue. began,But in retrospectnamely as soonI realized as the that objects this of investigationwas the borderline have feelings. where such This specific does not ethical mean challenging situations. But the additional to say that studying lifeless nature does not entail researchers may also have to cope with culturally ethical problems – it surely does, because of the involvement of dealing with fellow humans sciences have in common. involvementas objects of investigationand detachment is entirely for social lacking. scientists effects it may have on the world. That is what all duringAs a result, their the empirical continuous research switching is much between more

But it is different when the objects of investigation challenging, while it raises a range of additional have feelings, and even more so, when they can ethical questions that will need to be addressed talk, and talk back to the investigator. That may one way or the other, simply because one is especiallybe why, I think, in terms biologists of consciousness and biochemists and suffering, tend investigating fellow human beings who have their to downplay the abilities that animals have, own interests. as a cultural anthropologist are unique, or so I of feeling pain and anxiety, because recognizing Especially the challenges of participatory research Whilesuch things atoms might and molecules, upset their stars, own planets,feelings. and and night, the investigator has to consequently moons do not have feelings, humans do, and trythink. to putWhile oneself living into in one’s the shoes own researchof a great field variety day they are able to express them. This inevitably aim is to present an analysis of the dynamics involved, simply because they need to interact of other people who are culturally different. The implies that social scientists will have to be more produced by how all these people interact with includingwith their the objects need of to investigation understand other(which people, are each other. Yet the researcher may not like some requiresrarely, if ever,a considerable called as such). degree This of empathy,interaction, Furthermore,of them, while many some of of them them may may be not very like poor. each (Wealthyother either, people or they are mayusually not far like less the accessible investigator. problematic. This empathy may be the most to cultural anthropological investigation – for including with people whom you may find morally historians, interestingly, the situation is virtually in social science. For if the academic researcher important skill needed to engage successfully the opposite; it is mostly the wealthy and powerful were not able to understand all people involved people who have left written documents or in the investigation, how would she or he be able statements). These poor people may well see the possible.to know what As a result,was going social on? scientists At the same need time, to learn the researcher as a potentially welcome resource. toscientific combine method both involvement requires as muchand detachment detachment as as madeAs a result, explicit. such Doing situations all of this introduce in continuous all kinds of tensions and biases which are often not Thispart ofcombination their academic of involvement skills. and detachment including their reacting to and commenting on the in the humanities is much more demanding researcherinteraction andwith on the the people investigation under investigation, in progress, than any of the tasks faced by natural scientists. while at the same time seeking to take as much Journal of Big History Page 37 Fred Spier academic distance as possible, has been by far the strict academic research method, other than that most challenging academic enterprise I have ever they can become an object of investigation. Yet at the same time emotions thoroughly guide all these 3 investigations. The same is the case for norms and Furthermore,undertaken. by entering into social situations values, including ethical judgments such as ‘good’ by investigating them as thoroughly as possible, that are different from one’s own experiences, and and ‘bad,’ ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly,’ none of which can be greatclearly importance. defined from But an they academic are simply point not of view.part of social scientists may become acutely aware of theTo be academic sure, personally toolbox of I find terms all that these can aspects be used of to many aspects of their own culture that they may have taken for granted until that time. As a result, they play a major role in the academic enterprise their personal socio-emotional makeup may analyze situations in academic ways, even though becauseundergo nothingconsiderable may seem change, ‘natural’ including anymore. finding it hard to operate within their ‘own’ societies again, as a whole.

As Tineke Luhrnman, who went through such vocabularyMany people or find social this actions difficult into and, the in academic oneexperiences has lived herself in another in Ecuador people’s and dollhouse, Peru in toolbox.consequence, But by may doing seek so, to the include notion an of emotional academic 1985-1986, expressed it many years ago: “After scientistsone becomes rarely, acutely if ever, aware seem of to the go fact through that one such thatresearch case andvirtually the resulting everything knowledge people do as could we know be experiences.lives in a dollhouse oneself as well.” Natural it today would be destroyed, simply because in

As a result, it seems to me that doing social science meaning.called as such. And as soon as that were to happen, these analytic terms would lose their specific In my opinion, all students of the humanities, in research, most notably longer-term participatory observations within a cultural setting that is different from one’s own, places far greater fact all academics, will have to live with the fact demands on a wide variety of skills than any other thethat resulting the academic representations research method of reality will valuable always aboutform of that science. particular The rewards society; haveabout been oneself; equally one’s oryield not a islimited based viewon personal of reality. value Whether judgements. one finds But great, though, in terms of what can be learned governing academic research are in principle the ‘own’ society; and about life more in general. All sameI hope all to across have shown academia. that the general principles of this presents major reasons for why it has been theremore difficultis not yet in a social general science theoretical research paradigm to take of humansufficient history. academic distance, and as a result why I personally hope that there will be more room Final words in the future within the academic world for onresearchers their personal from allexperiences disciplines, that not have only led to writeto down their academic analyses but also to reflect belongingIf we consider to the feelings domain as of belonging underlying to theform, domain our dailyof direct emotional experience expressions and academic fall outside thinking of the as these results, because that would enrich our insights of how the process of academic research works. Combining those two aspects in an equal 3 A report of and some reflections on my Peruvian fieldwork experiences can be found in: Spier 1986 (in Dutch) and in: Spier 1995, p. xiii-xviii. Volume I Number 1 Page 38 On the pursuit of academic research across all the disciplines

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - an inquiry into values. way was perhaps the major thrust of the work of Pirsig, Robert M. 1976. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). One can Over wetenschap en de argue about how successful von Humboldt and belangenNew York, die Bantam worden books. gediend met het bedrijven his followers have been. But it seems to me that van Spier sociale, Fred. wetenschap 1984. (On science and the doing so in whatever ways that appear to work maywould help considerably us to improve enhance our understanding our views of how of the Unpublished paper. resultsacademic of academicresearch works research, in practice. even though And thatthese interests that are servedVerslag by doing betreffende social science).de results themselves must be based on nothing else uitvoering van het leeronderzoek ‘Religies in Perú’’. but empirical evidence and underlying academic Spier, Fred. 1986.

(Report of the executionOver of wetenschap my field research en de thinking. belangen‘Religions die in Peru’).worden Unpublished gediend met paper.het bedrijven van Spier sociale, Fred. wetenschap 1987. (On science and the Literature The Origin of Species Unpublished paper. by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation interests that are servedReligious by doing Regimes social in science). Peru: of FavouredDarwin, Char Racesles. in 1985.the Struggle for Life. Religion and state development in a long- term Spier perspective, Fred. 1994. and the effects in the Andean village of Zurite. Amsterdam, Amsterdam Harmondsworth, PenguinGuns, Books Germs (1859, and original Steel: University Press. Thetitle: fates On the of human Origin ofsocieties. Species … etc.). San Nicolás de Zurite: Religion Cape.Diamond, Jared. 1997. and Daily Life of an Andean Village in What London, is Sociology? Jonathan a ChangingSpier, Fred. World 1995.. Amsterdam, VU University Press. Elias, Norbert. 1978a. The History of Manners. London,The Civilizing Hutchinson. Process: Volume I Elias, Norbert. 1978b. Spier, Fred. 2012. ‘The elusive Apollo Dubitando: 8 Power .and New Civility. The StudiesEarthrise in photo.’History In: and Boeck, Culture Brian in Honor J., Martin, of Donald CivilizingYork , Pantheon Process: Books. Volume II OstrowskiRussell E. .& Bloomington, Rowland, Daniel Ind., (eds.) Slavica Publishers Elias, Norbert. 1982. The. NewCourt York, Society. Oxford, Pantheon Books. (409–23). Elias, Norbert. 1983. Involvement and the Spier American, Fred. founding 2013. ‘Pursuing fathers.’ the Social pursuit Evolution of DetachmentBasil Blackwell. &happiness: History Delving into the secret minds of Elias, Norbert. 1987. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen. Oxford, Metaphysik Basil Blackwell. 12, 2 (156–82). Moscow,Molecular ‘Uchitel’ Biology Verlag.Kant, Immanuel. 1976. ofPublishing the Gene, House. second edition . Hamburg,Thinking, FelixFast and Meiner Benjamin. Watson, James, D. 1970. Slow . New York, W. A. Kahneman, Daniel. 2011.The Structure of The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Scientific. New Revolutions York, Farrar,. Chicago, Straus andUniversity Giroux. of Discovery Watson, of James, the Structure D. & Stent, of DNA Gunther (Norton (ed.). Critical ChicagoKuhn, Press. Thomas S. 1970. Edit1981. Paperback)

. New York, W.W. Norton & Co.

Journal of Big History Page 39 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold: How Earth processes concentrated the precious metal that played a critical role in the history of Spain and Portugal

García-Moreno, Olga 1, 2, 3 Aguirre-Palafox, Luís Erick 3 Álvarez, Walter 3, 4 Hawley, William 3, 5

(1) Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Oviedo, C/ Jesús Arias de Velasco s/n. 33005 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain (2) Centro de Investigación en Nanomateriales y Nanotecnología, CSIC-UO-PA, Avenida de la Vega 4-6, 33940 El Entrego, Asturias, Spain (3) Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-4767, U.S.A. (4) Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco, Contrada Coldigioco 4, 62021 Apiro (MC), Italy (5) Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, 215 McCone Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 U.S.A.

ABSTRACT We present a “little big history” of the gold that either was mined in the Iberian Peninsula, or was brought there from deposits located elsewhere, by trade or by conquest. During Roman times, gold was extracted from the Peninsula itself. In the Middle Ages, gold was brought across the Sahara from very rich near-surface occurrences in West Africa. After the discovery of the New World, Colombia was the most important source of gold entering the Peninsula. Each of these gold-bearing regions has had a different geological history, and in each one, gold was concentrated by a variety of geological processes. The West African gold dates back to fairly early in Earth history, about 2 billion years ago, and resulted from closure of an ancient ocean basin. The Iberian gold is related to the continental collision that produced the Appalachians and their Variscan continuation in Europe, while assembling the Pangea supercontinent. that has produced the Andes. For each of the three regions we present a database of historical and active goldThe Colombianmining areas, gold and is associatedwe summarize with this the informationsubduction under in maps. South The America ways in of which the Pacific Earth Oceanconcentrates crust gold are the subject of much geological research, and we give a brief introduction to this remarkable topic, hoping that big historians will go beyond Carl Sagan’s statement that “We’re made of star-stuff,” and will recognize that “We’re made of star-stuff, concentrated by Earth.”

I. INTRODUCTION with fairly similar cosmic histories, because everything in big history has obeyed the same One approach to the study of big history is to take laws of physics, set up early in the Big Bang, and some feature of the human situation and trace the chemical elements of which our physical world the history, from the beginning of the Cosmos, is constructed were fashioned by the same stellar which has led to this aspect of the world we live in. processes (with differences however for light and Esther Quaedackers pioneered this approach, and heavy elements). she calls such a study a “little Big History.” Little big histories begin to turn complicated in Of the four regimes of big history — Cosmos, the regime of Earth history, because the long and Earth, Life, and Humanity — different ones are complex history of our planet has constructed of differing importance in different little big very different geological conditions in different histories. Most little big histories will begin parts of the Earth. The very young basalt volcanic A Little Big History of Iberian Gold rocks of Iceland, for example, which erupted we would amend Carl Sagan’s concept to a form where brand-new oceanic crust is forming, bear that big historians should embrace, and stress no resemblance whatsoever to the very ancient that: and complicated, cycled and recycled, geology of Australia. With our backgrounds in geology and “We’re made of star-stuff, concentrated by Earth.” geophysics, this is the part of big history that is most familiar to us. Little big histories become In this paper we will show that the gold that seriously complicated in the regime of Life history, affected Iberian history was concentrated in a and overwhelmingly so in that of Human history. variety of different geological ways, and these are just a sampling of Earth’s remarkable virtuosity In this paper we present a “little big history” of in forming rich gold deposits of many kinds. This gold in the context of Iberia. This large peninsula, kind of little big history could be written for any now shared by Spain and Portugal, has had access of the other chemical elements, or for rocks like to copious amounts of gold for most of its history, limestones or granites, or for petroleum and other from pre-Roman and Roman times until the fossil fuels. This means that the range of Earth independence of the former Iberian colonies in the New World about two centuries ago. This has had great to be understood in full depth and breadth byprocesses anyone, that including have benefitted individual humanity geologists, is buttoo social, and political history of Iberia, and contrasts we hope our study of Iberian gold will help big witha major other influence, regions for lacking good this or ill, resource, on the economic, such as historians appreciate the critical role that Earth the Low Countries or Italy. has played in setting up the human situation.

We’re made of star-stuff, concentrated by Earth II. GOLD IN THE HUMAN HISTORY OF IBERIA

To provide a focus for the very large, complicated, was discovered in or brought to Iberia, we have and controversial topic of gold geology (Goldfarb, aIn much addition broader to our point specific to make focus in on this the paper, gold that 2001a, b; Goldfarb et al., 2010), we present our one which is important for big historians to little big history of gold in the context of Iberia. understand. Most big historians now recognize During the past two millennia, the gold of Iberia that all the chemical elements heavier than has come primarily from three sources — Iberia hydrogen, helium and lithium were produced itself, the West African Sahel, and Colombia. To in stars and scattered through the galaxy as the keep this treatment manageable, we will not result of supernova explosions. This essential consider gold that might have entered Iberia from piece of understanding is encapsulated in Carl other sources available to the Roman Empire, Sagan’s statement, “We’re made of star-stuff.” such as Dacia (modern Romania), the Egyptian- Arabian-Nubian region, or Wales. The gold from But for geologists like us, that statement, although the three regions above was delivered to Iberia in true, is incomplete. The scattered atoms and the four different ways during four historical episodes: dust grains made of silicate minerals and iron in interstellar space are too dispersed to be of any use to humans. The elements we are made of or Gold from Iberia that we use have been concentrated in a large variety of processes that go on either inside or at Some of the earliest known gold artifacts from the surface of the Earth (Alvarez, 2016, Ch. 3). So Spain come from Asturias in the northwest of

Journal of Big History Page 41 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley the Peninsula, dating from the early Chalcolithic Abundant gold paleoplacers —or ancient alluvial (Blas Cortina, 1994), and are currently under ore deposits— in northwest Iberia were probably study. We also have the Pre-Roman Treasure of exploited by artisanal mining in pre-Roman times. Arrabalde, found near the later Roman mining This area subsequently became a major source of site of Las Médulas (Perea and Rovira, 1995). gold for the Roman Empire. Las Médulas, where Pre-Roman gold is also known from the realm Roman engineers and miners recovered gold from of the Phoenicians and the contemporary native old, consolidated sedimentary deposits, must Kingdom of Tartessos, in the south of Spain. In have been an environmental disaster at the time, Extremadura, in south- central Spain, as the site but today is a landscape of colorful beauty that where at least some of this gold was originally has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage collected is now known, the chemical details of Site (Fig. 1). The Roman mining system used at natural nuggets match those of the Tartessian Las Médulas, aptly named Ruina Montium, was Treasure of Aliseda (García-Guinea et al., 2005). described by Pliny the Elder (transl., 1952). A

Figure 1. Las Médulas (León, NW Spain). This UNESCO World Heritage landscape is an ancient gold mine from Roman times. Photo courtesy of Bernardo López Santamaría.

Volume I Number 1 Page 42 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold

newly discovered site of large-scale Roman infrastructure necessary for intense gold mining. extraction of gold from river gravels is in the Valdería, near Castrocontrigo (Justel-Cadierno et in southwestern Iberia, whose geological origin is al., 2014; Fernández-Lozano et al., 2015). Both of quiteWe also different briefly fromconsider that theof northwestern gold-bearing Iberia.region these sites are within 100 km of the city of León, a name deriving not from “lion,” but from “legion,” for this was the headquarters of the Roman legion Gold from West Africa charged with protecting these critical sources of gold. Production evidently tapered off or After a few centuries in the Early Middle Ages ceased after the Roman decline and the Germanic in which gold was less important in Iberian invasions eliminated the technical expertise and history, the Islamic conquest of the 8th century

Figure 2. Mansa Musa. Catalan atlas about 1525 ACE, with the image of the King of Mali, Mansa Musa, shown with the gold that made his kingdom so wealthy (attributed to Abraham Cresques, about 1375, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Catalan_Atlas_BNF_Sheet_6_ Western_Sahara.jpg)

Journal of Big History Page 43 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley brought contacts with Morocco. This eventually pilgrimage (1324-1325) of the King (or Mansa) of Mali, Musa I (c. 1280-c. 1337), to Mecca, in which Saharan caravan trade from abundant sources in he distributed huge amounts of gold in Cairo (Fig. sub-Saharanled to an influx West of gold Africa. into In Iberia this long-enduring via the trans- caravan trade, Arab merchants exchanged salt, controlled trans-Saharan gold caravan may have extracted from deposits at Taoudenni, in the been2). The one search of the for motivations a way to outflank for Prince the Henrique Arab- of middle of the Sahara in modern Mali, for gold Portugal (“Prince Henry the Navigator”) to begin harvested from rich placer deposits called the Portuguese exploration along the west coast Wangara, probably along the Senegal River (Bovill, of Africa in the early 15th century (Russell, 2000). 1968). Much of the gold eventually reached As a result, by the 15th century the Portuguese Islamic Iberia, in exchange for its sophisticated had reached the African gold region by sea, manufactures. founding the trading center of Elmina in 1482, on the coast of modern Ghana, within 100 km of As the strong Islamic control of Iberia, centered rich gold-producing regions (Leitão and Alvarez, at Córdoba, faltered after the 11th century, much 2011). of the African gold reaching the Islamic parts of the peninsula was extracted by militarily strong Christian kings, as the tribute called parias, from Gold from Colombia the weaker kings of the Islamic successor, taifa kingdoms. Christian kings like Fernando I (1037- After the capture by Castile, in 1492, of Granada, 1065) and his son Alfonso VI (1065-1109) of the last Islamic kingdom in Iberia, African gold León-Castile gave huge gifts of gold to the French could no longer reach Spain in large quantities Benedictines, and these riches largely funded the by the trans-Saharan route. However, in that same year, the discoveries of Columbus brought Fernando’s gifts have recently been questioned: two whole new continents to the attention of Pick,cultural 2013). and artistic flowering of Cluny (although

By the 14th century it was well known that the kingdoms of the Sahel were enormously rich in gold, because of the

Figure 3. Pre-Columbian boat sculpture as an example of Muisca art in Colombia; the gold probably came from placer deposits in riverbeds. (Votive figure. Cordillera Oriental – Muisca. 600 CE – 1600 CE. 10.2 x 10.1 x 19.5 cm. Museo del Oro Collection – Banco de la República. Colombia. Photography by: Clark M. Rodríguez.)

Volume I Number 1 Page 44 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold the Spanish, who rapidly undertook exploration, In most cases it is the Earth that has done the concentrating, through a wide variety of processes of precious metals. Truly enormous quantities that have acted slowly over long periods of time ofone silver major were goal discovered of which was at Potosí to find in resources Bolivia (Brimhall, 1987, 1991). The production of natural (1545) and at Zacatecas in Mexico (1546), while deposits of each element thus has a history and the most abundant gold resources were found in is a vital part of big history. In this section of our Nueva Granada, now Colombia, which seems to paper we aim to make the origin and history of have been the most richly endowed gold province gold deposits understandable. in Andean South America. Gold placers were exploited in much of Colombia, and additional We have found it most effective to do this in the gold was taken from pre-Columbian tombs. The form of a narrative, presented as a sequence of wonderful gold ornaments in the Museo del Oro in questions. Some of the questions have answers, Bogotá (Fig. 3) give us an idea of the artistry of the but others can only be answered partially, or in goldsmiths of the Muisca (Chibcha-speaking) and the form of other questions, for these are topics related peoples. three, our sequence of questions moves from the The rich streams of New World silver and gold familiarof active surfacegeological of the research. Earth downward Except for intothe firstthe were funneled into Spain in early colonial times, inaccessible interior of the planet. funding the Habsburg wars against the Protestants spread from Seville all over Europe — the so- Question 1: What is the ultimate source of gold calledin Europe, “Spanish and causing Price Revolution.” waves of inflation This last that source in the Cosmos? of gold and silver entering Iberia dried up after the Latin American Wars of Independence in the Q: Cosmologists now understand that at the early 19th century, ending perhaps 3,000 years end of the Big Bang, during the Dark Age, before of Iberian gold. But it is interesting to note that the Spanish and then the Mexicans controlled the made of hydrogen, helium, and traces of lithium coastal belt of present-day California until 1846, (ignoringthe first stars dark began matter). to shine, How thedid Cosmosthe other was 90 or unaware of the vast gold resources that would be so elements come into being? discovered in the Sierra Foothills, just to the east, in 1848. A: Many big historians are familiar with the recognition that the other elements were made in stars, as by-products of the nuclear reactions III. HOW DO GOLD DEPOSITS FORM? that make the stars shine or, for many elements heavier than iron, during the stellar collapse Almost any little big history that involves a that produces a supernova explosion. Gold physical aspect of the human situation — from a is one of these r- (rapid-) process elements water glass, to a human being, to a city — must (Cowan and Thielemann, 2004), both formed and ask about the origin of the chemical elements of dispersed by supernovas. This understanding which it is made. This is well understood by many of nucleosynthesis has become part of the big historians, but what is less appreciated is that we must also ask about how each element was “The Creation of New Chemical Elements,” in concentrated and made useful. thecanon textbook of big history,of Christian, identified Brown, as andThreshold Benjamin 3, (2014). In a broader sense, it is now recognized that matter has evolved during the unfolding of big

Journal of Big History Page 45 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley history (Garzón-Ruipérez, 1994; Tolstikhin and the accretion of smaller objects onto the Earth Kramers, 2008). continued, and they added what is called the late veneer.

Question 2: What is the ultimate source of gold Our current understanding is thus that Earth in the Earth? differentiated early and quickly into an iron core, surrounded by a rocky mantle that makes up Q: Carl Sagan’s “star-stuff,” the product of many about 90% of the Earth by volume. The other supernovas preceding the formation of the Earth, was dispersed through interstellar space and was in silicon and oxygen, and poorer in magnesium, a mixture of many different elements. How did thanfirst-order the mantle. component In contrast of Earth to coreis its formation,crust, richer the Earth acquire its gold? crust has come into being slowly and gradually through the whole of Earth history. It is of two A: A detailed answer to this question would take us far from our subject. For a brief review, at mid-ocean ridges, lasts perhaps a couple of see Alvarez (2016, Ch. 2). But a critical point for hundredkinds: Oceanic million crust years, forms and thenby sea-floor sinks back spreading into understanding gold is that Earth is dominantly the mantle at subduction zones; oceanic crust composed of four elements — magnesium, is ephemeral. Continental crust on the other silicon, iron, and oxygen (Mg, Si, Fe, O) — which hand, being more buoyant, generally does not were relatively abundant in the solar nebula, and mantle, although it is subjected to repeated cycles secondare concentrated because they in Earth make first solid because mineral they grains, ofsubduct, mountain but building,continues becoming to float on more top ofand the more too heavy to have been blown out of the inner complicated through time. To our knowledge, Solar System by the strong solar wind of the young most of the gold that has been successfully mined Sun. is in the continental crust, although there are also very important gold deposits that formed on As Earth accreted, the growing planet must often oceanic crust but are now found on the continents have been largely or partly molten because of after accretion. the heat of large impacts, and dense iron sank to the center to make Earth’s iron core, probably carrying along most of Earth’s gold, which is a Question 3: How can we understand how gold “siderophile” element, easily absorbed by hot has been concentrated? or molten iron. The other major elements — magnesium, silicon, and oxygen — went into Q: Over its 4.5 billion years of history, Earth has making the Earth’s rocky mantle, which we can operated like a giant chemical processing plant, think of as composed of minerals like olivine taking chemical elements that were all mixed

(Mg2SiO4). up and dispersed, and gradually concentrating

A second critical point is that when Earth was almost completely accreted from solid grains and ofand ways, refining which them. involve Gold, geology, for example, chemistry, has been gas in the solar nebula, its growth was interrupted andconcentrated physics. Howand refinedcan scholars by Earth and in scientists a variety by a giant impact of a body probably about the who are not geologists acquire a broad, clear size of Mars. This off-center impact tore away a understanding of this important but complicated substantial fraction of the Earth’s mantle, which aspect of Big History? ended up as the Moon, orbiting the Earth. But

Volume I Number 1 Page 46 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold

A: By restricting ourselves to the three regions in size, but as a malleable metal, they can also that supplied gold to Iberia in historical times, stick together as nuggets (Fig. 4a, b). Some studies we make the topic more manageable. The three (e.g., Johnson et al., 2013) indicate that some regions are geologically completely different, so bacteria excrete nanoscale gold particles and are we get a sense of the variety of processes at work. able to concentrate gold in this way as part of their It might have been logical to begin our study of metabolism. Both of these mechanisms can build gold in the Earth’s core and to follow it upward, up nuggets of gold, which in rare cases can reach ending with economic gold deposits in the crust. several pounds in weight. However, we have chosen to start at the more familiar surface and work downward. Question 5: How did the gold get in veins, deposited by water, when gold is Question 4: The easiest gold to find and mine insoluble? is in placer deposits. How do placers form? Q: The secondary gold in placers commonly comes from erosion of “primary” gold in bedrock, Q: In many gold-rich regions, gold can be found as commonly gold hosted as tiny blebs of metal in nuggets and as smaller grains, within the sand and quartz veins (Fig. 4c). Silica and gold have been gravel sediments of rivers — both modern rivers and ancient ones — often concentrated at the from depth, often following fractures or faults, bottom of the river sediment. These secondary, or andtransported precipitate in solution as crystals by hotof quartz, fluid ascending sometimes “placer” deposits are relatively easy to mine, and together with much smaller amounts of gold. The regions — in ancient times in Iberia, in mediaeval relatively pure water or a mixture of water and timeswere the in West first toAfrica, be exploited and in pre-Columbian in all three of ourand carbonfluid carrying dioxide. the gold and silica can either be Spanish-colonial times in Colombia. How does gold come to be concentrated in placers? Gold is valued as jewelry partly because of its attractive color, but also because it does not A: tarnish, as silver does. The gold in a wedding ring from some older rock, commonly from gold- may very gradually wear away over the decades, bearing Sedimentary quartz veins, grains then of gold transported are first eroded— in this but it does not dissolve or react chemically. If gold is insoluble and chemically inert, then how can it sediment. Gold has a much higher density than commoncase by running quartz water,grains and(density finally of deposited19.3 vs. 2.65 as or faults to be deposited chemically at shallower g/cm3), so it gets sorted from quartz grains by depths?be carried along in fluid rising through fractures density, accumulating at the bottom of sand A: The answer to this puzzle is that in hot, deep excavations of river gravels for the foundations for is soluble, and is carried up in solution abodies. saw mill, The and first eventually California many gold ofwas these discovered detrital in from depth — from deeper in the continental or grains were traced to upstream vein sources. oceanicfluids, gold crust. In addition to its siderophile, or iron-loving character, gold is also a chalcophile other. In the case of quartz sand, this breaks them has (Barnes and Ripley, 2016). Sulfur, among intoSand smaller grains inand a flowingsmaller riverfragments. hit against But goldeach otherelement, chemical with an elements, affinity for will sulfur, help theas copper solubility also behaves differently. Gold grains may get reduced One can recognize

of gold in these deep fluids. Journal of Big History Page 47 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley this difference in chemical behavior under also treated chemically, before the gold can be different conditions also in the fact that the gold- bearing veins are mainly composed of quartz, for times, but is common today, and each of our quartz, like gold, is also extremely insoluble and threeextracted. regions This is wasnow difficult the focus in of pre-industrial modern-day unreactive under surface conditions (Alvarez, exploration for lode gold (see the maps in Fig. 2016, Ch. 3). 6-8).

Like placer gold, primary gold in quartz veins and disseminated in certain rocks is of great economic Question 6: What crustal environments can importance and is mined by underground host gold deposits? workings and in open pits in many places around the world (Fig. 4c, d). However, this “lode” mining Q: The primary gold near the Earth’s surface is transported upwards in various ways from deeper the gold is dispersed in hard rock that must be in the Earth’s crust. In what kinds of geologic brokenis more updifficult into small than fragments,placer mining and because commonly environments can gold-concentrating processes occur?

A: We have now reached the point where the geology of gold becomes very complicated, controversial, and uncertain, so we will give only a brief synopsis of what appear to be some of the important gold- producing crustal environments:

(1) At mid-ocean ridges, two plates are moving apart, so that mantle rises and partially Figure 4. Natural gold samples. Horizontal scale bar is 1 cm. melts, solidifying to a. Gold nugget from Howard River, Nelson, South Island, New Zealand. form new oceanic b. Gold nugget from Galice District, Josephine Co., Klamath Mountains, crust. Here there is Oregon, USA. a dramatic process c. Quartz vein with gold from Western Lode, Level 12, Obuasi mine, Ashanti that produces gold belt, Ghana, West Africa. metal deposits that d. Nicely crystallized gold from Eagle’s Nest Mine (Mystery Wind Mine), may contain gold. Placer Co., Sierra Foothills, California, USA. Sea water, driven

Volume I Number 1 Page 48 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold down by pressure into cracks in the new crust as this environment, in what are called “orogenic” it is pulled apart, is heated by contact with hot gold deposits (Goldfarb et al., 2001b, Goldfarb rock, expands, and rises to gush forth on the sea and Groves, 2015), using a geologic term where “oro” refers to mountains, not to gold. The gold- circulating water leaches metals and sulfur out of thefloor surrounding in spectacular rocks hydrothermal and then deposits vents. themThis hot in carbon-dioxide, was released from different chimneys called black smokers, which may contain mineralstransporting as they fluid, were a combination heated and ofmetamorphosed water and gold. There are spectacular images of black smokers on the web. These deposits are called upward along major faults during earthquake activity.during the Many accretion. of the Iberian The fluids gold were deposits then arefocused of gold in southwest Iberia and western Colombia this type, and were generated during the Variscan appearsvolcanic tomassive be of this sulfides origin. (VMS), and some of the Orogeny, about 300 million years ago, when Gondwana collided with the northern continents (2) At subducting plate boundaries, like the to assemble the supercontinent of Pangaea, west margin of South America, thousands of forming the Appalachian Mountains and their kilometers of old oceanic crust may sink, dipping former Variscan continuation through Iberia and below the continent, and thus under continental central Europe. In addition, almost all the gold crust, and descend into the mantle. Through deposits in West Africa were formed this way 2 these subduction processes, magmas are formed billion years ago and many of the gold deposits in by melting of the mantle or lower crust and they Colombia were formed this way about 90 million rise to shallower levels in the crust. They may years ago. cool at mid-crustal or upper crustal depths to form great bodies of granitic rock, or erupt at the All three of these environments are related to surface from volcanoes like those of the Andes. plate tectonics, but two other possibilities may Gold deposits may form in this environment, not be. So we treat them separately in the two such as in parts of the Colombian Andes and the following sections. from the crystallizing magmas or from surface Iberian Peninsula, from fluids either released Question 7: How (and when) did gold get from Gold resources formed in these environments the mantle into the crust? fluids convecting around the cooling granites. epithermal deposits, and many are also associated Q: Evidently the gold in the crust must have come withare typically economic classified concentrations as porphyry, of silver, skarn, copper, and from the mantle, and we can ask, How did gold molybdenum, tungsten, lead, and/or zinc. get into the continental crust from the underlying mantle? There seems to be no clear answer to that (3) Another major gold environment occurs question because of the inaccessibility of the deep where old ocean crust has been partly subducted crust, but there may be an answer to a related and partly scraped off, or “accreted,” to the edge question: When did gold get into the continental of a continent — something like a huge car wreck crust from the underlying mantle? in slow motion. The accreted rocks get intensely deformed and metamorphosed, magmas are A: In a detailed review paper, Goldfarb et al. produced and cool to form granites, a mountain (2001b) showed that very large amounts of range is driven upward, and then the continents orogenic gold were emplaced in the latter part may rebound slightly, pulling the mountain range of the Archean (~2.8-2.5 Ga) and the early apart in extension. Gold may accumulate in Proterozoic (2.1-1.8 Ga). This was followed by

Journal of Big History Page 49 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley a gap in the ages of orogenic gold during the up from the core in plumes — in slowly rising Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic (1.6-0.6 columns of hot, buoyant mantle material that Ga) before widespread orogenic gold deposits continue to be active today, with the most familiar recognized in the Phanerozoic (0.6 Ga to now). examples located at Hawaii and Iceland. It Of our three regions of interest, West African has been suggested that mantle plumes were gold was emplaced before the Mesoproterozoic- the source of gold for at least some major gold Neoproterozoic gap, and Iberian and Colombian provinces (Oppliger et al., 1997; Bierlein and gold after it. Goldfarb suggested that this Pisarevsky, 2008), and magma that comes not episodic character of orogenic gold deposition from the normal mantle, but instead from the may be related to changing heat regimes during Iceland mantle plume has been shown to contain Earth history — a topic of much interest and slightly higher amounts of gold than normal little agreement — as well as differences in mantle (Webber et al., 2013). preservation of certain crustal levels that relates to the changing regimes. One possibility is that Plumes are thought to originate at the base of the early Earth was much hotter and lost heat by mantle, where it is in contact with the hot core, general overturn of the mantle, rather than by the and these hotter, buoyant plumes migrate upward organized patterns of plate tectonics. over millions of years in a shape that resembles a mushroom (Fig. 5a). Eventually the plume ‘head’ reaches the surface and generates enormous Question 8: How did gold get into the mantle? amounts of volcanism (Richards et al., 1989) (Fig. 5b). After this burst of intense volcanism caused Q: As a siderophile element, most of the Earth’s by the plume head, which can last for a million gold must be in the iron core. We also know that years or more, the plume tail forms a long-lived there is gold in the crust, where it is mined. We know less about gold in the mantle, because of its tens of millions of years, generally characterized inaccessibility, but it seems likely that the mantle ‘hotspot’ that remains fixed in the same place for also contains gold, some of which has migrated into the crust. Are there ways in which the mantle andby an when active an volcano active volcano or volcanic moves field too (Fig. far 5c).away could have acquired gold? fromTectonic the plateshotspot, move a new over volcano this fixed is formed plume over‘tail,’ the hotspot. The hotspot thus creates a chain of A: Broadly speaking, there are three ways the extinct volcanoes, leading away from the active mantle could have retained or acquired gold: volcano in the direction of the motion of the tectonic plate, in a way that might resemble fabric (1) Some amount of gold may have remained in passing through a sewing machine (Fig. 5d). The the mantle because of incomplete partitioning into Hawaiian Island chain is a perfect example, with the core during core-mantle separation (Brenan the currently active volcano at the Big Island, and McDonough, 2009). and progressively older extinct volcanoes on the islands and seamounts stretching toward the (2) Some extra-terrestrial gold may have been northwest. brought to Earth by impacting objects as a “late veneer,” late in the accretion process, after the core Burke et al., 2008 have suggested that mantle and the mantle had separated and the Moon had plumes originate not just anywhere on the formed (Willbold et al., 2011). boundary between the mantle and the core,

(3) A small amount of gold may be carried seismic studies. These regions are so deep and so but from anomalous regions identified through

Volume I Number 1 Page 50 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold small that exactly what they are remains a topic little interaction with the mantle (Fig. 5); this is a of lively debate. One appealing explanation is topic of active research, and there is not a general that these regions are the result of some material agreement among geologists. being pushed out of the core and into the mantle (Buffett et al., 2011). If this is the case, mantle plumes could provide a conduit to transport gold IV. THE THREE REGIONS THAT SUPPLIED from the core directly to the crust, with very IBERIA WITH GOLD

We have compiled databases for the three regions that supplied gold to Iberia, giving information about historical mining areas, where available, and about presently active gold mines and prospects. The information comes from the published literature, and from reports available on the web about modern mines and prospects in various stages of development. In many cases it has been possible to identify active mines and prospects on Bing Maps and Google Earth. We provide the databases in the Appendix, and here we summarize the distribution of gold deposits in each of the three areas in maps. Figure 5. The evolution of a mantle plume. The base of the plume is rooted at the core–mantle boundary. Two tectonic plates separate from a mid-ocean ridge. a. The plume rises from the core–mantle boundary in the shape of a mushroom. West African gold b. The plume head reaches the bottom of a tectonic plate, and generates a large amount of magmatism and volcanism at the surface. West Africa is the c. The plume head has entirely been erupted out or solidified on the underside of largest of the three the tectonic plate, creating an oceanic plateau. The tail of the plume creates a regions, and also the volcano as the oceanic plateau moves away from the hotspot. oldest geologically, d. Each volcano at the hotspot is subsequently moved by the tectonic plate far enough away that the hotspot can no longer supply magma. That volcano goes with continental crust extinct, and a new one is formed over the plume tail. that was produced by

Journal of Big History Page 51 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley

Figure 6. Gold deposits in West Africa showing historical and current mining activity. Elmina was the Portuguese trading center. tectonic events about 2,200-2,100 Ma, in the the color of these rocks to shades of green. These Paleoproterozoic, around the time when our “greenstone” metamorphic belts are separated planet was beginning to acquire an oxygen-rich by granitic bodies, and this kind of granite- greenstone belt is characteristic of Archean and (Alvarez 2016, Ch. 7). We have compiled a Paleoproterozoic regions (de Wit and Ashwal, databaseatmosphere of medieval and the first and eukaryote modern gold cells mining emerged 1997). Granite-greenstone geology is not known areas in this region (Appendix 1), summarized on to be forming today, and may be the result of a map (Fig. 6). processes that were only active on a hotter, young Earth. Gold here is found mostly in the “Birimian” sequence, made originally of volcanic and Gold in West African deposits is commonly related sedimentary rocks (Smith et al., 2016). to faults and shear zones and is mainly found in Metamorphism — textural and chemical change quartz veins and disseminated in surrounding in rocks due to heat and pressure — has changed rocks of all types that may host these veins.

Volume I Number 1 Page 52 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold

Erosion of those veins has led to concentrations Pre-Roman metal and gold working has been recognized in southwest Iberia dating back to which have been exploited in both medieval Chalcolithic and Bronze Age times (O’Brien, andof gold modern flakes times. and nuggets It was thesein paleoplacer rich and easilydeposits, 2015; Blanco and Rothemberg, 1981), but it was exploited gold placers that made the medieval not until Roman times that substantial mining West African empires — Ghana (4th to 12th operations took place. Gold and silver were mined centuries A.D.), Mali (13th to 16th centuries A.D.), in the region, but they were not as important and Songhai (15th to 16th centuries A.D.) — so as other metals, such as copper, tin, iron, lead wealthy and powerful. (O’Brien, 2015), with the addition of sulfur after the development of large open pits in the 20th

Iberian gold

The Iberian Peninsula (Appendix 2) is the smallest of our three regions, but gold exploitation has come from two geologically different regions (Fig. 7). Both are parts of the Variscan belt, a collisional mountain belt that crossed central Europe and, before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, continued into the Appalachians.

One part of the Variscan belt in the southwest part of Iberia is the Iberian Pyrite Belt, an area where gold and other noble metals come from volcanic ventsmassive in whatsulfide was (VSM) a volcanically deposits formed activeon the spreadingocean floor plate by hydrothermal boundary. As discussed above, modern hydrothermal vents are the deep-sea “black smokers,” some of which host abundant life despite the extreme conditions (www. youtube.com/watch?v=huTJlHMR_LE). The deposits in the Iberian Pyrite Belt are found in oceanic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of Devonian to Carboniferous age (ca. 383-323 Ma) (Gibbons and Moreno, 2002, p. 478), vertebrates and primitive reptiles Figure 7. Gold deposits in the west Iberian Peninsula showing appeareda time when in thethe fossilfirst seed record. plants, land historical mining areas in the northwest, and current mining activity.

Journal of Big History Page 53 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley century (Gibbons and Moreno, 2002). The Colombian Andes (Nie et al., 2010) comprise three parallel ranges, separated by Northwest Iberia is also part of the Variscan belt. the valleys of the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers This belt was formed by the continental collision (Fig. 8). The Eastern Cordillera is continental that brought together the northern continental in origin, while the Western Cordillera is made mass (Laurentia) and the southern continental of oceanic rocks. Including the complex Central mass (Gondwana), thus assembling the most recent supercontinent, Pangea. The Variscan-Appalachian orogenic belt is geologically much younger (ca. 300 Ma) than West Africa, and most of its features are well explained by plate tectonic processes. These processes and the resulting geology are complicated, however, involving the suturing together of ribbon continents and the twisting of the mountain belt in Iberia into a doubly-curving “orocline,” or bent mountain system (Gutiérrez-Alonso et al., 2004; Johnston et al., 2013). The northwest Iberian gold deposits are of the orogenic gold type reviewed by Goldfarb et al. (2001b).

Colombian gold

Colombian gold is found in the Andes, a long chain of deformed rocks with volcanoes formed above a subduction zone that is carrying down to the east, beneath the South Americanoceanic crust continent. of the eastern The Colombian Pacific gold belt is the youngest of our three regions; it began to form during the age of the dinosaurs (Mesozoic) and the subsequent proliferation of mammals (Cenozoic), but deformation and volcanism continue to play an active role in today’s Figure 8. Gold deposits in Colombia showing historical and Andes. current mining activity.

Volume I Number 1 Page 54 A Little Big History of Iberian Gold

Cordillera, surmounted by active volcanoes and maintained the Roman world. Gold from sourced by the descending subducting slab, Sub-Saharan West Africa, extracted from the petty the Colombian Andes record a long history of Muslim kings after the fall of Córdoba by the collisional accretion of continental and oceanic stronger Christian kings, helped bring about the terranes and their lateral displacement. It is in Christian Reconquest, and paid for much of the this complicated geological environment that the Colombia gold deposits have been emplaced. New World, and the even more abundant silver, helpedCluniac the artistic Catholic flowering Habsburg in France. kings ofGold Spain from make the Our map and database (Appendix 3) show that war on the Protestants of Northern Europe. Colombian gold is found in all three cordilleras, which seems surprising, considering their very Gold was originally derived from supernova different geological character. The most accessible explosions and then dispersed and diluted in the exploitable gold in Pre-Columbian and colonial early Earth. Over the 4.5 billion-year history of times was in placer deposits found along beds our planet, many different geological processes of the major rivers and their tributaries coming have concentrated gold into economic deposits of from the high rugged cordilleras, and in small and many kinds. Some of these are reasonably well medium scale vein mining. Early on in the Spanish understood, others are enigmatic and are the period, gold was also taken from Pre-Colombian subject of continuing geological research. burial grounds (West, 1952). A few mining operations of considerable scale (Fig. 8), along The ways in which Earth concentrates gold, and with smaller and illegal gold mining, are active in all the other elements we humans use, can be present-day Colombia. understood at many different levels, from the very general to the complex and subtle. We hope that big historians will recognize the need for at least V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS a basic understanding of Earth’s virtuosic ability to concentrate and make useful all the chemical Gold is an uncommon metal in the Earth and elements that originally were dilute, dispersed, plays little or no role in biology, but humans have and quite useless. chosen to value it highly, perhaps because of its attractive color, its resistance to corrosion and We thus hope that Carl Sagan’s memorable tarnishing, and its rarity. Because of this rather aphorism, that “We’re made of star-stuff,” will be arbitrary valuation, people go to great extremes to supplemented or replaced by a statement that contains a deeper understanding of Big History: it away from other people. Because of its accepted value,find and gold extract can be gold, exchanged to accumulate for other it, andthings to take “We’re made of star-stuff, concentrated by Earth.” that have real, intrinsic value, like food, material goods, land, and the services of other people, like workers and soldiers.

For many centuries, the countries of Iberia, for contingent historical reasons, had easy access to large supplies of gold, which was not always peninsula itself was the basis for the coinage of theused Romans, for the benefitsupporting of the the Iberians. legions thatGold expanded from the

Journal of Big History Page 55 García-Moreno, Aguirre-Palafox, Álvarez, Hawley

VI. APPENDICES Bierlein, F. P. and Pisarevsky, S., 2008. Plume- related oceanic plateaus as a potential source of Appendix 1: Database of historic and modern gold gold mineralization. Economic Geology, 103(2), sources in West Africa. pp.425-430.

Appendix 2: Database of historic and modern gold Blanco, A. and Rothemberg, B., 1981, Exploración sources in Iberia. arqueometalúrgica de Huelva, Labor, Barcelona.

Appendix 3: Database of historic and modern gold Blas Cortina, M. A., 1983, La prehistoria reciente sources in Colombia. en Asturias, Fundación Pública de Cuevas y Yacimientos Prehistóricos de Asturias: Oviedo, p. 279. VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Blas Cortina, M. A., 1994, El anillo áureo de tiras We would like to thank Richard Goldfarb for de Mata’l Casare I y su localización megalítica, his thorough review of a previous version of Oviedo, Principado de Asturias. this paper. We thank Gabriel Gutiérrez Alonso for helpful information about Roman gold in Bovill, E. W., 1968, The golden trade of the Moors, NW Iberia, and Bernardo López Santamaría for London, Oxford University Press, 293 p. the photograph of Las Médulas in Fig. 1. We also thank Robert Knapp for discussion and Brenan, J. M., and McDonough, W. F., 2009, Core information about Pre-Roman gold in Spain. formation and metal–silicate fractionation OGM´s stays in Berkeley in 2013 and 2016 of osmium and iridium from gold: Nature Geoscience, v. 2, no. 11, p. 798–801, doi: International Excellence Campus of the University 10.1038/ngeo658. ofwere Oviedo, financed in the by framework Banco de Santander, of the excellence- through the mobility program for lecturers and researchers. Brimhall, G. H., 1987, Metallogenesis: Reviews of We thank Timothy Teague for technical assistance, Geophysics, v. 25, no. 5, p. 1079-1088. David Shimabukuro for general discussions of the geology of gold, and David Pedreira for Brimhall, G. H., 1991, The genesis of ores: Scientific photography and discussions about the geology of American, v. 264, no. 5, p. 84-91. gold in Iberia. Buffett, B. A., Garnero, E. J., and Jeanloz, R., 2011, Sediments at the top of Earth’s core: v. 1338, no. VIII. REFERENCES CITED 2000, doi: 10.1126/science.290.5495.1338.

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New York, McGraw Hill, 332 p. Goldfarb, R. J., Bradley, D., and Leach, D. L., 2010, Secular variation in economic geology: Cowan, J. J., and Thielemann, F. K., 2004, R-process Economic Geology, v. 105, no. 3, p. 459-465. nucleosynthesis in supernovae: Physics Today, v. 57, no. 10, p. 47-54. Goldfarb, R. J., and Groves, D. I., 2015, Orogenic de Wit, M. J., and Ashwal, L. D., 1997, Greenstone sources through time: Lithos, v. 233, p. 2-26. belts: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 809 p. gold: Common or evolving fluid and metal Gutiérrez-Alonso, G., Fernández-Suárez, J., and Fernández-Lozano, J., Gutiérrez-Alonso, G., Weil, A. B., 2004, Orocline triggered lithospheric and Fernández-Morán, M. A., 2015, Using delamination: Geological Society of America airborne LiDAR sensing technology and aerial Special Papers, v. 383, p. 121-130. orthoimages to unravel roman water supply systems and gold works in NW Spain (Eria Johnston, C. W., Wyatt, M. A., Li, X., Ibrahim, A., valley, León): Journal of Archaeological Science, Shuster, J., Southam, G., and Magarvey, v. 53, p. 356-373. First edition. N. A., 2013, Gold biomineralization by a metallophore from a gold-associated Frimmel, H. E., 2008, Earth’s continental crustal microbe: Nat Chem Biol, v. 9, no. 4, p. 241- gold endowment: Earth and Planetary Science 243. Letters, v. 267, no. 1–2, p. 45-55. Johnston, S. T., Weil, A. B., and Gutierrez-Alonso, Garcia-Guinea, J., Correcher, V., Rojas, R. M., Fierro, G., 2013, Oroclines; thick and thin: Geological J. L. G., Fernandez-Martin, C., López-Arce, P., Society of America Bulletin, v. 125, no. 5-6, p. and Rovira-Llorens, S., 2005, Chemical tracers 643-663. in archaeological and natural gold: Aliseda Tartessos treasure and new discovered nuggets Justel Cadierno, A. M., Fernández Lozano, J., and (SW Spain): Gold Bulletin, v. 38, no. 1, p. 23-28. Fernández Morán, M. A., 2014, Ruta romana del oro en la Valdería, Castrocontrigo-León, Garzón-Ruipérez, L., 1994, Historia de la materia: LAIMPRENTA-Valencia. del Big Bang al origin de la vida, Oviedo, Ediciones Nobel, 288 p. Leitão, H., and Alvarez, W., 2011, The Portuguese and Spanish voyages of discovery and the early Gibbons, W., and Moreno, T., 2002, The geology of history of geology: Geological Society of America Spain, London: Geological Society, 2002. Bulletin, v. 123, no. 7-8, p. 1219-1233.

Goldfarb, R. J., Groves, D. I., and Gardoll, S., 2001a, Nie, J., Horton, B. K., Mora, A., Saylor, J. E., Housh, Rotund versus skinny orogens: Well-nourished T. B., Rubiano, J., and Naranjo, J., 2010, Tracking or malnourished gold?: Geology, v. 29, no. 6, p. exhumation of Andean ranges bounding the 539-542. middle Magdalena Valley basin, Colombia: Geology, v. 38, no. 5, p. 451-454. Goldfarb, R. J., Groves, D. I., and Gardoll, S., 2001b, Orogenic gold and geologic time: A global O’Brien, W., 2015, Prehistoric copper mining in synthesis: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 18, no. 1-2, p. Europe, 5500-500 BC, Oxford and New York : 1-75. Oxford University Press, 2015.

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Volume I Number 1 Page 58 The Meaning of Human Existence. By EDWARD O. WILSON. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Co., 2014 207 pp. $14.95 (paperback).

So, what is the meaning of human existence? As by extension, other religious texts. A more modern it turns out, it is “the epic of the species” (p. 174). response might be that it is found in philosophy According to E. O. Wilson, in this new book, the or art or psychology or indeed in history itself. meaning of existence is the story itself, the whole Regardless of Colbert’s true personal beliefs, kit and caboodle, from our biological origins he framed the problem of meaning perfectly: through prehistory and recorded history and on Meaning as a concept only has validity in a into the future. metaphysical sense.2 From this perspective, the meaning of human existence cannot be discovered But wait a minute, if we are dealing with physical using modern science. laws, and what we can observe, measure, and test; if our guiding principle is a commitment If, as Wilson maintains, we are the product of to empirical evidence and scholarly methods; “overlapping networks of physical cause and if science “is totally committed to fact without reference to religion or ideology” (p. 44); then “meaning”-less. As Ian Hesketh puts it, “like how can the meaning of human existence derive anyeffect” myth, (p. 13),big history’s by definition deep our meanings existence are is not from our understanding of the future about which inherently derived from empirical observations we have no evidence whatsoever? but from its anthropomorphic projections of an idealized cosmic world.”3 Harvard historian David Wilson swats away this pesky problem by Armitage is equally succinct, “Big history, in all its guises, has been inhospitable to the questions of conclusions, while at the same time expecting meaning and intention so central to intellectual anyoneflattening who out reads the meaning the book of of “meaning” nature in ato fit his history.”4

conclusions as this self-confessed “congenital Then why would anyone go to all this trouble optimist”“scientific” (p. manner 102). As to longcome as to we the pay exact close same to reformulate a sweeping inquiry into the attention to the story, he asserts, and learn from meaning of human existence? For two reasons, the scientists, then naturally we will do the right thing—without recourse to religion. “The the religiously-oriented, and second, because accidents of history are the source of meaning,” first, because not doing so cedes the field to he assures us, and “the concept of meaning is the should be addressing the moral concerns of worldview of science” (p. 12). ourscientists day—and and bigthe historyscientifically-oriented in theory provides an excellent opportunity to address big moral When Stephen Colbert challenged the and philosophical questions. In order to do so, philosophical reach of the big history story by however, the partnership between the natural saying that the facts it lays out are “the events sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities of life, not the meaning of life,” David Christian has to be an equal one. responded in the same way that Wilson does. “Meaning is in the map,” he explained. “If you have On some levels Wilson senses this. Following a map it tells you where you are, and if you know the same line of reasoning that he elaborated in where you are, you know where you can go.” 1 Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), he argues that the best way to facilitate the moral “If you know what the key says in the corner,” choices that he deem important is, in addition Colbert replied. to accepting the truths revealed by science, to bridge the gap between the two cultures. Without Some would suggest, as Colbert went on to do, question I believe this is correct, and it puts this somewhat disingenuously I think, that the key to interpreting the map is to be found in the Bible or, the tradition of what he calls the “evolutionary book (along with Wilson’s other work) firmly in Review: The Meaning of Human Existence

On Human and valid history extends far back in time, well Nature (1978). Along with similar studies such prior to the ancient civilizations . . . even beyond asepic,” Jacques a concept Monod’s he first Chance developed and Necessity in (1971), the onset of hominins . . . It was as though, Steven Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes (1979), trekking up a mountain whose summit holds true Paul Davies’ God and the New Physics (1983), Ilya knowledge, the big historians began realizing Prigogine and Isabelle Strenger’s Order out of there’s much more to history than we had been Chaos (1984), Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan’s led to believe. . . . Yet hardly a decade ago, those Microcosmos (1986) and Eric Chaison’s Cosmic same big historians, much enthused by their new Evolution (2001), the evolutionary epic is a genre story-telling agenda, discovered a different breed of scholars on the other side of the mountain.”7 problem, as in the book under review, and In Chaisson’s story, these hero-scholars are typically,that entails, the first, need the to unifyposing the of sciencesa philosophical and the astronomers; in Wilson’s, they are biologists. In humanities; second, a long tour through the both versions they are most emphatically leading the way. 5 exciting scientific discoveries the author has made, It could be worse. At least the big historians forin this a new work, morality, specifically, here, thatmultilevel we no selection;longer need demonstrate some internal fortitude and religionand, finally, as a a source philosophical of meaning conclusion or explanation. that calls6 climb the mountain. Chaisson leaves the shilly- shallying philosophers “wondering wearily from epic. It has all the elements in place—including the This book is the very definition of an evolutionary impact their thoughts and beliefs that require no mountainous ledges how the latest findings might moral).conflict between its stated methods (scientific/ of philosophy when boiled down consists mostly objective) and its conclusions (anthropocentric/ oftests.” failed For models Wilson’s of thepart, brain” he finds (pp. that 160-161). “the history The sticking point is that, while the notion of consilience as the way forward is brought And here I think is the crux of the matter: the home throughout, it feels more like an arranged marriage than an equal partnership. There are willing to accept is one that begs the is something condescending and patriarchal question.only definition Then ofscience meaning becomes that these the super-hero, scientists in the way Wilson offers science as guide to, science as savior, but this wishful viewpoint is and protector of, the humanities. “Would the philosophically uninformed. Wilson presents humanities care to colonize the sciences? Maybe science as pure and testable and free from use a little help doing that? How about replacing ideology, based only on the facts, and then wants it to do things that are well beyond its imperative. mind, with new worlds of far greater diversity Consequently, he holds a decidedly romantic basedscience on fiction, real science the imagining from many of fantasy minds? by Might a single notion of what a grown-up relationship with the poets and visual artists consider searching in the humanities might be like. “Exalted we are, risen real world outside the range of ordinary dreams to be the mind of the biosphere without a doubt, for unexplored dimensions, depth, and meaning?” our spirits uniquely capable of awe and ever more (p. 12). breathtaking leaps of imagination” (p. 25).

The tone is reminiscent of a recent essay by The reality is that the humanities—along with another Harvard scientist, astrophysicist Chaisson, the social sciences, which Wilson bypasses who imagines a few intrepid historians, some altogether—have far more to contribute to our twenty years ago, discovering that “much good understanding of the meaning of existence than

Journal of Big History Page 60 David Blanks

from the ants?” he quips (p. 95). “Here again I will examining the philosophy, history and psychology ofis herescience being itself. supposed, For all his first conciliatory and foremost rhetoric, by it is clear that Wilson believes science to be the Wilson’sanswer definitively. tough on religion, Nothing.” more so than in his dominant partner and wants a relationship with other books, describing religions as “impediments the humanities only if it is going to be on science’s to the grasp of reality needed to solve most social terms; certainly not if it means taking seriously problems in the world” (p. 150). And his tone of anything the humanities has to say vis-à-vis a moral outrage has risen several degrees. We are philosophical critique of science, the history of bad at government; businessmen and political science, or the implications of presenting this leaders believe in all sorts of crazy, superstitious history in a narrative form. A real rapprochement stuff; we seem “unable to stabilize either economic will require scientists to admit that they do not policies or the means of governance higher actually have all the answers and that just because than the level of a village” (pp. 176-177); the they are experts in entomology or astrophysics population is growing too fast (because it is taboo does not mean that they can be our guides to to talk about enforcing birth limits). As a result, we everything else as well. have made a mess of the environment. Worst of all, some people still do not believe in evolution. Realigned somewhat from the meanings he found in nature in the 1970s (the potential for genetic All this because “Homo sapiens is an innately engineering, human rights, diversity in the gene dysfunctional species” (p. 176). Wilson blames arts and humanities scholars for not spending meaningful issues to be not fooling around with enough time wondering about why human geneticpool), now, engineering, in this book, biodiversity Wilson finds (again), the mostand nature is the way it is and what that means. To two new items, environmentalism, and what he my surprise, he doesn’t spare his colleagues now sees as “the greatest goal of all time, the either: “Scientists who might contribute to a more unity of the human race” (p. 174), by which he realistic worldview are especially disappointing. means bringing an end to all forms of “tribalism,” Largely yeomen, they are intellectual dwarves content to stay within the narrow specialties for his main point is that the “prerequisite for which they were trained and are paid” (p. 178). All attainingforemost theamong goal them [of human sectarian unity] conflict. is an accurateNaturally, in all, Wilson’s journey through his own mind is self-understanding. So, what is the meaning of a rather entertaining jaunt. Being a curmudgeon human existence? I’ve suggested that it is the myself, I enjoyed going along for the ride. epic of the species, begun in biological evolution and prehistory, passed into recorded history, and David Blanks urgently now, day by day, faster and faster into the Arkansas Tech University become” (p. 174). And there you have it. (Endnotes) indefinite future, it is also what we will choose to 1 The Colbert Report, Season 10, Episode The Meaning of Human Existence is a stimulating, 22, November 12, 2013, anthropocentric tour through the thinking of one . http://www.cc.com/video- of the world’s foremost entomologists. Wilson 2 This is what philosophers refer to as the analytic- syntheticclips/91wur1/the-colbert-report-david-christian distinction. See for example Stephen Anderson, is an excellent writer and for those already “The Meaning of ‘Meaning,’” Philosophy Now Issue 88, familiar with his work this book contains some diverting anecdotes and observations unpublished . elsewhere. “What can we learn of moral value January/February 2012, https://philosophynow.org/ issues/88/The_Meaning_of_Meaning

Volume I Number 1 Page 61 Review: The Meaning of Human Existence

3 “The Story of Big History,” History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall 2014): 196. 4 “What’s the Big Idea? Intellectual History and the Longue Durée,” History of European Ideas 38:4 (December 2012): 494. 5 In biology multilevel selection (as opposed to of individual competition within the group as well as cooperationinclusive fitness) among includes members a consideration of a group for of the the purpose effect of competing with opposing groups. It explains, among other things, altruism, and, most importantly for the present purposes, our propensity for religious behavior. Wilson goes over this is detail in an appendix (pp. 189-202). 6 On the evolutionary epic as a genre, see Martin Eger, “Hermeneutics and the New Epic of Science” in The Literature of Science: Perspectives on Popular Scientific Writing, ed. Murdo William McRae (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1993), pp. 186-209. On big history as evolutionary epic, see Ian Hesketh, “The Story of Big History” and “The Recurrence of the Evolutionary Epic,” Journal of the Philosophy of History 9 (2015): 196-219. My particular thanks to Dr. Hesketh for leading me to the seminal discussion of the evolutionary epic found in Eger. 7 “Big History’s Risk and Challenge,” Expositions 8:1 (2014): 85-95, . https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/ reprints/Expositions_BH.pdf

Journal of Big History Page 62 I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life. ED YONG. New York: HarperCollins, 2016. 355pp. $27.99 (hardcover).

Not every generation gets to witness the transformation of heresy into dogma. We didn’t 2.5 billion years, bacteria and archaea charted get to read the Copernican revolution in the largelywith bacteria separate and evolutionary archaea. “For courses. roughly Then, the first on literature as it happened. Nor the Darwinian one. one fateful occasion, a bacterium merged with But we are in the midst of one right now. (p.9). Swept into the dustbin is also the notion So fresh and on-the-cusp-of is this revolution, thatan archaeon,” inherited prototypinggenes alone theare firstresponsible eukaryote for the that it has no eponymous name associated with great diversity on Earth. At every level—bodies, it. Candidates for that honor might include Anton organs, cells, even nuclei—and in every function— de Bary who coined the term symbiosis; Ivan metabolism, reproduction, development, Wallin who recognized that mitochondria are homeostasis, and most surprisingly speciation— symbiotic bacteria living in the cellular cytoplasm; prokaryotic life is enriching the genetic potential Konstantin Mereschkowski who coined the term of all eukaryotic life. symbiogenesis; or Lynn Margulis who advanced and substantiated a theory of a symbiotic Earth. Wait, what? What’s wrong with rugged individualism? “Bacteria,” Yong answers, “are There will, however, be no disputing the name of a science writer who described this revolution in a expert pharmacologists…[and they] reproduce rigorous and delightfully readable book. Ed Yong rapidlyinfinitely and more swap versatile genes readily. than we In are. the They great are is a science writer for The Atlantic and National evolutionary race, they sprint, while we crawl” Geographic hosts his blog, Not Exactly Rocket (p. 207). Evolution does its slow work through Science. He lives in London and Washington, D.C. heredity, but it can move at a blinding pace through symbiosis since complex plants and When he gives a talk about his new book, Yong animal bodies “are hubs of genetic innovation, walks from one side of the stage to other, pointing out milestones in the epoch of life on Earth much between the huddles masses of microbiome” like a big historian. He starts with the formation (ibid.).because they allow DNA to flow more freely of the Earth at one end of the stage, points out the emergence of prokaryotic life about a quarter One of the most compelling examples of this of the way across, the emergence of eukaryotic symbiotic view of life is the Hawaiian Bob-tail life before halfway mark, the emergence of Squid and its relationship with bioluminescent multicellular life an inch before the end of the bacteria called Vibrio fisheri. Yong takes us on a stage, and the emergence of humans, of course, at the actual edge of the stage. Seeing this timeline all ages are being studied. Upon seeing a thumb- on stage, it’s easy to think of the prokaryote as sizedfield trip squid to upthe close, lab where changing tanks before of these his squid eyes from at distant relatives, separated from us by millions white to “an autumnal scene painted by Seurat” years. But the central thesis of Yong’s book is that Yong confesses, “I’m rather taken. The squid oozes we are not distant nor separate from those ancient personality” (p.49). life forms at all. They are, in fact, us. The squid hides in the sand by day but it feeds at Yong synthesized 10 years of articles about night. It swims on the surface of shallow water the microbes within us so that readers can experience a grander view of life. Debunked detecting shadows. So it’s a good thing the squid is the notion that any eukaryotic organism is a isand equipped is preyed with upon a specialized from below light by fish organ good that at acts single individual. He describes an early Earth like an invisibility cloak. This ability to hide is a teeming with prokaryotes. Every inch of land and superpower masterminded by a symbiosis. The sea, ice and atmosphere is covered or saturated

researchers attach a florescent marker to a group Review: I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

nested ecosystems, from the climate to the nucleus they make the squid a new invisibility cloak every day.of bioluminescent V. fisheri microbes and watch as Thisof a gut revelation cell in a hasfruit implications fly. for managing the During the day, the surface of the light organ is well-being of the ecosystems that surround us covered in mucus and beating hairs called cilia. and live within us. It might move us away from The hairs create a current that draws in particles waging war with disease, infection, allergy, and of bacterial size. Microbes amass in the mucus, autoimmunity and toward tending the invisible gardens of microbes instead. It might encourage us to forgo biocides—pesticides, herbicides, presenceV. fisheri amongof a squid, them. they When start at spewing least five out of a V. fungicides—and focus on learning how to use cocktailfisheri, enough which repelsto make or akills quorum, any other detect microbe the diversity to grow the ecosystem services we crave. We do have to be careful, Yong warns. “Symbiotic microbes are still their own entities, inside,and attracts the microbes even more release V. fisheri. enzymes The thatcolumn remodel of with their own interests to further and their own thepure light V. fisheri organ marches to make intoroom the for light themselves organ. Once and evolutionary battles to wage. They can be our close the door behind them. When night falls, partners, but they are not our friends. Even in the sensors on the top of the squid detect the precise most harmonious of symbioses, there is always amount of moonlight. That information gets communicated to the light organ community so that when they simultaneously decide to turn on Atroom the for very conflict, least, reading selfishness, this bookand betrayal” would make (p.76). their light, the light shining down from the squid big historians recognize that we need to update matches the light shining down on the water (p. the grand narrative with a fuller discussion 51 ). of prokaryotic symbiosis. Without symbiotic relations; there would be no eukaryotes, no This single instance of symbiosis reveals a multicellularity, no adaptive immune system. stunning amount of agency for a group of blind, There would be much slower adaptations to new gutless, and brainless prokaryotes—they sense habitats and food sources, slower co-evolution physical parameters, talk to each other, make between plants and animals, and perhaps group decisions, synthesize innovative enzymatic considerably less speciation. actions, encourage tissue growth, and modify host social behavior. Even harder to believe is that the At its core, the book adds another dimension microbiome is not a constant entity. The bacteria to our understanding of increasing complexity. in the squid are pumped out of the light organ Recapitulating the narrative of big history, Yong every morning and re-recruited every afternoon. writes “cities are hubs of innovation because they concentrate people in the same place, allowing This is an astonishingly complex procedure, one that certainly caused this reader’s jaw to drop. Likewise, our bodies concentrate bacteria. “Close Like the collective shock and awe emitted from the yourideas eyes” and information he continues, to “andflow picturemore freely.” skeins of globe when the image of Earth from the moon was genes threading their way around your body, beamed from space in 1969, we are likely to be passed from one microbe to another. We are changed after reading Yong’s book. Although we bustling marketplaces, where bacterial traders have no crisp image to stare at, Yong’s compilation exchange their genetic wares” (p.196). of vignette after vignette paints a picture in our mind’s eye that life on Earth is a collection of Perhaps understanding the role of prokaryotic

Journal of Big History Page 64 Lucy Bennison Laffitte symbiosis in the life sector of the big history narrative will give us a useful metaphor for understanding the cosmic, Earth and humanity example of symbiosis? Is the gravitational asteroid-sweepingsectors of Big History. that Are Jupiter molecules provides the for first Earth gravity on the potential for life on Europa? Whatreciprocated? is the best What way is to the promote influence human of Earth’s dignity across the globe—keeping cultures distinct and separated, or connected and homogenized? The metaphor is a certainly a generative one.

The application of this new idea is generative as describes just of a smattering of the research and developmentwell. The final that chapter is exploding is an uplifting in the one.literature Yong on health, agriculture, aquaculture, pest management, personalized medicine, and ecosystem management on land and sea. It is a great gift to a grander view of the grand narrative. I Contain Multitudeshumanity when provides the scientificus with a endeavorpanoramic generates look at North Carolina State University this grandeur. North CarolinaLucy Bennison School of Laffitte, Science M.Ed, and MathPh.D.

Volume I Number 1 Page 65 The Gene: An Intimate History (hardback). . By SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE. New York: Scribner, 2017. 592 pp. $32.00 Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the highly In order to prove his point, Mukherjee opted to regarded and Pulitzer Prize winning The Emperor craft The Gene as a (mostly) chronological history, of All Maladies, has undertaken what he terms as an “intimate history” of the gene. Mukherjee’s medical credentials are impressive, yet they are relevantbroken up to into heredity six sections. and genetics. In the Hefirst begins section, also atypical for research and writing on the Mukherjee tours all early scientific research history of science. The Gene is impeccably written Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and ends with and expands our understanding of a well-known thewith rise Gregor of eugenics Mendel’s as peatold garden, from the covers stories Charles of history through his unique viewpoint. In fact, Francis Galton and Buck v. Bell. In this section Mukherjee’s work is reminiscent of another Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond. Originally a physiologist, Diamond, is best known for applying Mukherjee also briefly tours the Ancient Greek Darwin.minds of Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato within his 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning Gun’s Germs, and the context of how they influenced Mendel and Steelhis scientific. viewpoint to the Spanish Conquest in In the second section, entitled, “In the Sum of

Mikherjee gives two reasons behind writing the continues following the history of human book. First and foremost is his family’s medical understandingthe Parts, There of Are the Only gene. the Of Parts,” note here Mukherjee is history. The opening chapter of the book, and the initial realization that “the gene was born consistent interludes throughout, share the ‘outside’ biology” (pg. 95). That is to say that the stories of three family members plagued with discovery was not made by biologists nor was it mental illness: Rajesh, Jagu, and Moni. Moni, immediately applied by the renown biologists of who at the time of publication resides in a mental the era. Of course, the irony is that the gene held the answers to many of the major questions that to the author’s mindset on heredity. In a stirring paragraph,institution inthe Calcutta, author remarkswas particularly that The influential Gene just took a while for biologists to realize that. This is “a very personal sort—an intimate history. sectionthe biological includes field a discussion was addressing of Thomas at the Morgan’s time; it The weight of heredity is not an abstraction discovery that genes moved in “packs,” the Third for me” (p. 14). The second root behind The Reich’s “applied biology,” and a number of major Gene is Mukherjee’s medical work as a cancer post-World War II breakthroughs in biology (p. biologist. On a daily basis, he was interfacing with 120). genetics, as he describes cancer as the “ultimate perversion of genetics—a genome that becomes Parts three and four denote a slight change in pathologically obsessed with replicating itself” (p. 9). on the development of human understanding, but hecontent; does so whereas through Mukherjee the detailed continues analysis to of focus two The primary claim made in the book is one of transformative technologies from the 1970s: gene sequencing and gene cloning. By emphasizing gene within the history of science. Mukherjee arguessignificance, that the specifically gene is a the“powerful importance and dangerous of the technical tum exploring modern medical research idea…the fundamental unit of heredity, and andthese the specific techniques technologies, used to mapthe book and identifytakes a moregenes the basic unit of all biological information” (pg. linked to disease. The highlight of these sections 9). Mukherjee goes on to explain that the gene is found in part four with analysis on the launch parallels the atom and the byte. Just as the atom is the basic unit of all matter and the byte is the basis last chapter of these two sections, “The Book of for all digitized information, the gene the basis of Man,”and findings simply oflists the bullet Human points Genome highlighting Project. facts The all biology. from the complete human genome mapping, such Review: The Gene: An Intimate History Jordan Lieser

present and speculates into the future. The Gene represents an incredible amount of research, and as “It has 3,088,286,401 letters of DNA (give or his work is to be commended. take a few)” (p. 322). however,Parts five theyand sixdo continueso almost the as appliednarrative science, of book notably does not employ familiar concepts analyzingincreased thehuman gene understanding within a variety over of particularlytime; orAs toolsfor its such application as complexity, to the fieldscale, of or big emergent history, the properties to tell his story. Perhaps the crux of the Looking Glass,” discusses different topics the issue is that The Gene: An Intimate History researchedrelevant social over issues. the past Section twenty five, years “Through as a means is really not a history of the gene as the title of linking the gene with personal and cultural seems to imply and does not utilize different identities and the concept of societal “normalcy.” This includes topics such as racial identity, sexual analysis. Instead, Mukherjee’s remarkable book determination, and Dean Hamer’s search for a isscales a better of time, labeled which as aseems history like of a science, natural craftedfit, for genetic link with sexual orientation. Part six looks by studying scientists and using their published toward the future, including potential medical papers, the historical record, and signs of their breakthroughs and ethical dilemmas. Most impact on society as evidence. In addition, The notable here is our current ability to manipulate Gene functions more as a textbook designed for human genetics, which invites the cliché ‘opening a popular audience rather than as a monograph Pandora’s Box’ metaphor. Luckily, the author with extensive archival or data based research. supplied a better summation with his poignant Despite its academic approach and formatting, its contention that “our capacity to understand and appeal, with the notable exception of parts three manipulate human genomes alters our conception and four, is likely to be less to big historians and of what it means to be ‘human’” (p. 12). more for curious readers.

Taken in its entirety, The Gene synthesizes an The big history of the gene remains unwritten, impressive breath of information from multiple but this is not to say that The Gene does not hold value for big historians. Mukherjee asks recorded by historians who study the history thought-provoking questions, adds perspective fields. Much of the book’s content is typically analyzes recent genetics and biological research narrative, and traces the interesting concept of (asof science; well as however,legal history, Mukherjee politics, additionally and social mores) humanon multiple understanding well-known of figures genetics in intothe bigwhat history was to compile a narrative that shows how human previously a largely unwritten history. The Gene: understanding of the gene has changed over time. An Intimate History certainly has a place on every In order to craft this history, the author largely big historian’s bookshelf. leans on previously published works for sections one and two. In parts two and three, however this methodology appears to shift as Mukherjee on the history of genetics from 1970 to the early Jordan Lieser, PhD crafts what is arguably the first complete draft narrative history, but this is an expected problem History Department when2000s. one’s Parts historical five and narrativesix are less arrives cohesive at the as a Dominican UniversityBig History of California Faculty

Journal of Big History Page 67 Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. By Marvin Harris. Updated ed. Walnut Creek, Lanham, New York and Oxford: Alta Mira Press, 2001. 381 pp.

To unite natural and human history big historians (55-59). Under infrastructure he puts modes of must try to describe carefully how material production (technology of subsistence, techno- conditions and human cultural processes relate environmental relationships, ecosystems, and work patterns) and modes of reproduction theory of human culture is needed. Marvin Harris, (demography, mating patterns, fertility, etc.). anto eachanthropologist, other. To do tried, this, overa plausible his lifetime, scientific to Under structure he puts domestic economy formulate such a theory. (family structure, domestic division of labor, socialization and education, sex roles, etc.) and Marvin Harris (1927-2001) was born in Brooklyn, political economy (political organization, taxation, NY, to impoverished parents of Russian-Jewish division of labor, class, hierarchy, control, war, ancestry. He wrote his doctoral dissertation at etc.). Under behavioral superstructure he puts art, Columbia University on a village study in Brazil music, dance, literature, rituals, sports, games, and science. in Mozambique, he changed his focus from ideologicaland joined theto behavioral faculty. In 1957,aspects on of fieldwork human The above categories are all behavioral categories behavior. He taught at the University of Florida used by anthropologists in describing and from 1981-2000 and wrote two textbooks, each understanding cultural communities. Like many in seven editions, plus 17 other books, for both anthropologists, Harris calls these categories academic and general audiences. etic. But there are also categories and concepts applied by native informers to their lives and their world, called emic categories. They include theory of sociocultural development. By ethno-botany and ethno-zoology, magic, religion 1968Harris he was stated determined his theory to andarticulate named a itscientific and taboos. (The anthropological linguist, Kenneth ‘cultural materialism’ in his book, The Rise of Pike, introduced both terms in his book, Language Anthropological Theory, known to two generations in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of of anthropology graduate students as the RAT. At Human Behavior, 1967.) that time Harris’ theory was not the dominant one among anthropologists; he spent years arguing Harris asserts the principle of infrastructure Cultural determinism, namely, that “the etic behavioral Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture modes of production and reproduction (1979).for it, specifically Near the endin the of firsthis life edition he updated of both probabilistically determine the etic behavioral the RAT and Cultural Materialism. By that time his domestic and political economy, which in turn colleague, Maxine L. Margolis, could state in her probabilistically determine the behavioral introduction to the RAT that cultural materialism and mental emic superstructures” (55-56). He was the “major theoretical paradigm and research acknowledges that the emic superstructure strategy in anthropology,” despite the surge in

the humanities. has influence, but he wants to explore fully the anti-scientific post-modernism in other fields of influence of the etic infrastructure and structure In his preface to Cultural Materialism Harris exchangesbefore considering that occur the among influence the superstructure,of the emic wrote that cultural materialism “is based on the thesuperstructure structure, and (56). the He infrastructure finds that the are interactive important simple premise that human life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence.” His direction and pace of transformational processes theory of cultural materialism prioritizes material initiatedin sustaining, within accelerating, the infrastructure or deflecting (160). the conditions as more likely than ideas to be causal in human societies. Harris lays this out in a scheme Harris describes the infrastructure as “the of infrastructure, structure, and superstructure principal interface between culture and nature, Review: Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture Cynthia Stokes Brown the boundary across which the ecological, factor in making cultural evolution different from chemical and physical restraints to which human biological evolution in his textbook, Culture, People action is subject interact with the principal and Nature (2nd ed. 1975), but he didn’t discuss sociocultural practices aimed at overcoming or this in Cultural Materialism (2001) or in the 7th modifying those restraints” (57). edition of his textbook (1997).

In a word, Harris rejects the notion that ideas Other additions by big historians include change the world. He claims that ideas gain (Goldilocks) conditions. Both of these are material infrastructureour emphasis onconditions, energy flows but Harrisand optimal does not Mentaltraction and only spiritual to the extent aspects that of theyculture fit theare material mention them. conditions in which people find themselves. different human populations have different sets Harris wrote Cultural Materialism for an academic ofsignificant, values, beliefs, but they and are aesthetic not able standards. to explain For why audience. In it he uses technical and theoretic Harris, the causes of human behavior patterns language and devotes many chapters to answering lie ultimately in the material conditions of the his critics, such as structuralists (a form of infrastructure. idealism, he says), post-modernists, dialectical materialists, socio-biological reductionists, and Harris used this example to make his theory eclecticists. Parts of this book could be useful in concrete: “ . . .during the late 1960s many young advanced and graduate big history courses for people believed industrial capitalism could be laying out possible positions and for provoking destroyed by a ‘cultural revolution.’ New modes discussion of the issues. Learning about his of singing, praying, dressing, and thinking were theory of infrastructure determinism may help big introduced in the name of a ‘counterculture.’ historians understand the underlying assumptions These innovations predictably had absolutely that we may be making. no effect on the structure and infrastructure of U.S. capitalism, and even their survival and Yet Harris’s ideas also seem dated. We need an propagation within the superstructure now analysis of current positions to move us toward seems doubtful except insofar as they enhance the science and the humanities seems incomplete clothes” (72). untila scientific we have theory formulated of culture. a working The synthesis theory. of profitability of corporations that sell records and Clearly, the tangible and cognitive systems are Do big historians generally prioritize what Harris intertwined and interactive. But in what ways? calls the infrastructure---the environment, Which predominates? Which is causal? Are technology, demography, food, basic survival- they chaotic, unpredictable, and inconsistent? --in describing and explaining human culture Discussing Harris’ theory of cultural development and history? I think that we generally do, with can help us move toward formulating an improved some important additions. One addition is theoretical paradigm. David Christian’s concept of collective learning as distinctive and crucial to human expansion. Perhaps Harris would have included collective learning in his technology of subsistence if he had known the term. But collective learning also seems Cynthia Stokes Brown part of the superstructure of literature, science Professor Emerita and religion. Harris recognized learning as a major Dominican University of California

Journal of Big History Page 69 A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves.

WALTER ALVAREZ. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2016. A256 number pp. $26.95 of books (hardcover). are now available that give the but the human interest in the story of a high reader a grand narrative of our universe from the Big Bang to our own immediate present, so what can yet another “big history” book contribute to personalschool dropout journey becoming from mule Hubble’s skinner scientific to janitor to partner has broad appeal. By sharing Humason’s backgrounds into his cosmic story. By the demisethat field? of the For dinosaurs, Walter Alvarez, the answer the geologist is, naturally who scientist, Alvarez gently draws readers of varied enough,identified in the telling asteroid big history impact with responsible planet Earth for the as the reader may not have all the facts about the the star of the show. earlytime Alvarezuniverse, arrives but is at certainly the birth well of planet prepared Earth, to appreciate the next chapter in the tale. information is less important than sharing an abundanceFor Alvarez, of imparting enthusiasm. an abundance Geology is of a slow on the processes that make material resources process, and a narrative that went into excessive That next chapter, “Gifts From the Earth,” focuses detail could unintentionally convince the general foregrounduseful to humans. of the story, The uniqueall the whilestrength making of it The clearAlvarez’s that bookthe dynamic is that it processes places geology of our in planet the Storyreader of that Earth nothing important is happening. For have an ongoing impact on the human story. This inexample, rich detail, Robert but M. presumes Hazen’s aworthy reader book, already is a worthy accomplishment, as many people have (2012), tells our planet’s history no such presumption; if anything, he presumes rock, and are inclined to view planet formation as willing to engage in such detail. Alvarez makes simplydifficulty setting appreciating the stage the for story the appearance of non-living of life. that geology can seem “arcane” and “foreign” to mostthe opposite. people, seeming Elsewhere “of Alvarezlittle use has in everydaywritten keeps geological history relevant to the modern life.” This is where his skill and experience as an world.Not so in Preferring Alvarez’s one narrative, good example which consistently to a educator are apparent; he knows that it is enough at the beginning simply to generate excitement chapter to telling the story of the element silicon, and interest. sprawling catalog, Alvarez devotes most of this stained glass for cathedral windows, and to the computerfrom sandy chips beaches, that enableto the first almost stone every tools, aspect to of history, from the Big Bang to the birth of planet modern human life. Earth,Alvarez but begins in a chattywith a andquick almost account cursory of cosmic fashion. He is well aware that this story has already This chapter, and the three that follow, make up astrophysics, such as Eric Chaisson and Steven major geographic features: continents and been told in detail by authors specializing in oceans;the core mountain of the book, ranges; focusing and in ancient turn on rivers. Earth’s that kind of narrative. He gently nudges Edwin HubbleWeinberg, aside and and wisely instead does gives not attemptattention to to repeat one of the less celebrated players, Milton Humason, Alvarez moves in close on exciting details such “a boy who dropped out of school at age 14 to perspectiveas the earthquake of plate that tectonics. destroyed He Lisbon introduces in 1755, drive a team of mules and had no further formal familiarthen contextualizes names and eventsthose details such as in the the voyages larger of Columbus, giving the reader a reference point, and be a digression, but it is a digression with a then makes the familiar fresh and new by telling education” (p. 24) Humason’s biography may understands that the expansion of the universe maypurpose: seem Alvarez remote wants and abstract to keep to us many entertained. readers, He Thisthe tale talent from for a introducinggeologist’s point a geological of view. Review: A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves interpretation truly shines in the seventh chapter, provides just enough detail with each example The book is short and the pacing is brisk. Alvarez physical“Your Personal evidence Record of our of own Life humanHistory.” bodies Instead to of to something new, well before the reader has a referring to the strata of rocks, Alvarez uses the chanceto create to excitement, lose interest. and The then loose moves structure quickly and follows a loose chronology, sliding backwards and lively pacing are comparable to the very best forwardsrecount Earth in time history. as suits While the topic much of of the the moment, book television documentaries on the natural world, this chapter follows a linear path through time, stimulating interest and leaving the audience identifying in proper order the geological periods in which various parts of our anatomy evolved. More than anywhere else in this book, he makes lovesready the for factsmore. of Thisthe natural is not a world “dumbing-down” and imparts of use of the jargon of his profession (“Hadean,” themthe material, with accuracy. however. But Quite he knows the contrary, that this Alvarez is not a textbook, and portions out the hard data obtuse and intimidating, the terms become accordingly. His introduction declares that he personal“Archean,” and “Proterozoic”), meaningful. but instead of being seeks to leave the reader “with a delight in a whole

and in that he certainly succeeds. series of fascinating stories” and “new questions,” Although the book is broadly organized into four worriedchronological about regimes following – Cosmos,a strict timeline. Earth, Life, His introduction& Humanity –plainly Alvarez states, makes “Although it clear hethere is not is a continuity from chapter to chapter, feel free to concludingread them in chapter any order is not that really interests a conclusion you.” In at that spirit of fueling the reader’s curiosity, Alvarez’s story of our planet, and experience some awe and all, but rather a reminder to reflect on the grand wonder. The chapter title is a question, “What Was the Chance of All This Happening?”, followed by another question in the final sub-section heading, J. Daniel May again“How withoutImprobable expecting Are We?”. the reader Alvarez to gives engage in technicalsome numbers details. and He figures considers on probability, it a success but to be “Big History” Program Director, First Year Experience curiosity. Dominican University of California able to raise the questions, to invite the reader’s Assistant Professor, Dept. of Language & Literature

Journal of Big History Page 71 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Starry Night over the Rhône 1888

Oil on canvas H. 72.5; W. 92 cm Paris, Musée d’Orsay Donation by Mr and Mrs Robert Khan-Sriber with life interest reserved, in memory of Mr and Mrs Fernad Moch, 1975

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Starry_Night_Over_the_Rhone.jpg

Note on Cover Painting

As David Christian has observed, Vincent van Gogh’s painting, “La nuit étoilée” (“Starry Night over the Rhône”), beautifully integrates many of big history’s themes.

Volume I Number 1 Page 72