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Considering David Christian's history for my own uses, I know little about the quality of his work besides his endorsement by Gates (who is very smart but not a

Considering David Christian's history for my own uses, I know little about the quality of his work besides his endorsement by Gates (who is very smart but not an expert in these fields). Before I spend a lot of time on Big History, does anyone know: 1) What is David Christian's professional reputation among his peers? 2) What do professional historians see as the strengths and weaknesses of Big History? 3) Does he really know enough about all these subjects to provide expert knowledge and analysis? Wouldn't it be better to have the evolution section taught by an evolutionary biologist? If these questions are answered in the article, please forgive me. I skimmed it, but it's 12 pages (converted to PDF).

tormeh 12y ago
Well, given limited time it is impossible to go both broad and deep, and he certainly seems to go broad. I don't think he needs to be an expert in anything, just a generalist.
walterbell 12y ago
Any such broad overview will necessarily apply subjective filters & analysis. E.g. compare these two diagrams from 1931 and 2014: 4000 year histomap: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/08/12/the_1931_histomap_the_entire_history_of_the_world_distilled_into_a_single.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/08/12/the_1931_his... 5000 year timeline: http://www.usefulcharts.com/history/timeline-of-world-history.html http://www.usefulcharts.com/history/timeline-of-world-histor...
maxexcloo 12y ago
I personally took his Introduction to Big History course last semester and had him as a tutor so my experiences may be useful to you! 1) While I don't know a lot about academic circles from what I gathered his method of teaching history is seen as different but not at all bad, he has connections in other fields who seem to love what he's doing. 2) Can't really answer that unfortunately. 3) David Christian is interesting as he'll readily admit if he doesn't know something in a lot of detail. That said, I found his knowledge to be quite good across all of the history we covered and he answered student questions well, pulling on others with more knowledge if he was unable to fully explain something or was unclear. He does in fact enlist the support of other professors for teaching certain topics, the lecture of the formation of the Earth was given by a Geologist and Evolution was in part covered by Dr Greg Downey, an anthropologist. I actually really enjoyed the course as, coming from an IT background, it was quite a bit more engaging and interesting and the group discussions in tutorials were very interesting with many good discussions had.

tormeh 12y ago

Well, given limited time it is impossible to go both broad and deep, and he certainly seems to go broad. I don't think he needs to be an expert in anything, just a generalist.

walterbell 12y ago

Any such broad overview will necessarily apply subjective filters & analysis. E.g. compare these two diagrams from 1931 and 2014: 4000 year histomap: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/08/12/the_1931_histomap_the_entire_history_of_the_world_distilled_into_a_single.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/08/12/the_1931_his... 5000 year timeline: http://www.usefulcharts.com/history/timeline-of-world-history.html http://www.usefulcharts.com/history/timeline-of-world-histor...

maxexcloo 12y ago

I personally took his Introduction to Big History course last semester and had him as a tutor so my experiences may be useful to you! 1) While I don't know a lot about academic circles from what I gathered his method of teaching history is seen as different but not at all bad, he has connections in other fields who seem to love what he's doing. 2) Can't really answer that unfortunately. 3) David Christian is interesting as he'll readily admit if he doesn't know something in a lot of detail. That said, I found his knowledge to be quite good across all of the history we covered and he answered student questions well, pulling on others with more knowledge if he was unable to fully explain something or was unclear. He does in fact enlist the support of other professors for teaching certain topics, the lecture of the formation of the Earth was given by a Geologist and Evolution was in part covered by Dr Greg Downey, an anthropologist. I actually really enjoyed the course as, coming from an IT background, it was quite a bit more engaging and interesting and the group discussions in tutorials were very interesting with many good discussions had.