Cynthia Stokes Brown was an avid reader and researcher. This collection is a digital representation of her personal library with the books categorized as Cynthia had them on the bookshelves in her home
These are the books she had in her Big History collection
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Teaching and Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field
Leonid Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, and Andrey V. Korotayev
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Evolution: Cosmic, Biological, Social
Leonid E. Grinin, Andrey V. Krotayev, Robert L. Carneiro, and Fred Spier
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Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future
David Grinspoon
For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence.
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And Then There Was You…
Erika K.H. Gronek
And Then There Was You... is a story about everything. It was written and illustrated for my son about 6 months after he was born. One sleep-deprived night I nursed him in a rocking chair while pondering the design of his room. I had decorated the top half of the room with Maxfield Parrish-styled clouds and a layout of the summer constellations set in glow-in-the dark paint on the ceiling. I wanted this design to say: “the future is wide open” and “there is nowhere else to go but up.” The border of the room had wall paper that was a replica of a Victorian time-chart of all of human history. It started with Adam and Eve and was up-dated with the on-goings of the present day. Staring into my son’s eyes, I pondered all of the events that had to take place for all of his atoms to be aligned into his tiny form. That is when I decided to write and illustrate a children’s book that accidentally hit upon all of the major themes contained in “Big History.”
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Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture
Marvin Harris
Cultural Materialism, published in 1979, was Marvin Harris's first full-length explication of the theory with which his work has been associated. While Harris has developed and modified some of his ideas over the past two decades, generations of professors have looked to this volume as the essential starting point for explaining the science of culture to students. Now available again after a hiatus, this edition of Cultural Materialism contains the complete text of the original book plus a new introduction by Orna and Allen Johnson that updates his ideas and examines the impact that the book and theory have had on anthropological theorizing.
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Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology
Marvin Harris
Professor Harris – the leading theorist in cultural materialism – bases this comprehensive work on the perspective of thematic and theoretical coherence, giving the book depth and continuity. Speaking directly to students, helpful chapter introductions and end-of-chapter summaries focus on key points before and after reading each chapter. This seventh edition includes meticulous updating of research and scholarship, especially in the very active field of physical anthropology and archaeology. A new feature – “America Now Updates” – turns an anthropological eye on the contemporary U.S., emphasizing the comparative aspects of anthropology and making the discipline relevant to students.
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The Rise of Anthorpological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture
Marvin Harris
The best known, most often cited history of anthropological theory is finally available in paperback! First published in 1968, Harris's book has been cited in over 1,000 works and is one of the key documents explaining cultural materialism, the theory associated with Harris's work. This updated edition includes the complete 1968 text plus a new introduction by the author, which discusses the impact of the book and highlights some of the major trends in anthropological theory since its original publication. RAT, as it is affectionately known to three decades of graduate students, comprehensively traces the history of anthropology and anthropological theory, culminating in a strong argument for the use of a scientific, behaviorally-based, ethic approach to the understanding of human culture known as cultural materialism.
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The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.
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Natural Capitalism: Creating The Next Industrial Revolution
Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
"Drawing upon sound economic logic, intelligent technologies, and the best of contemporary design, Natural Capitalism presents a business strategy that is both profitable and necessary. The companies that practice it will not only take a leading position in addressing some of our most profound economic and social problems, but will gain a decisive competitive advantage through the worthy employment of resources, money, and people."--Jacket.
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Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil
From plate tectonics to leptons to the first living cell, now you can understand the simple science behind our complex world.
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Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed The Way We See The World
Gerard Helferich
This is the story of the charismatic explorer who Simon Bolivar called "the true discoverer of South America," and of the daring expedition that altered the course of science. Humboldt was the reigning scientific mind of the early 19th century, a unique combination of naturalist and adventurer. On a 6,000-mile journey through what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Cuba, risking his life in treacherous terrain, he conducted the first extensive scientific explorations of the Andes and the Amazon, literally redrawing the map and dramatically expanding our knowledge of the natural world. He set an altitude record while climbing Chimborazo, made revolutionary discoveries about volcanoes and the earth's magnetic field, and introduced Americans and Europeans to the cultures of the Aztecs and the Incas. He laid the groundwork for the fields of climatology and oceanography, and profoundly influenced followers such as Darwin and Agassiz.--From publisher description.
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Future Primal: How Our Wilderness Origins Show Us the Way Forward
Louis G. Herman
"How should we respond to our converging crises of violent conflict, political corruption, and global ecological devastation? In this sweeping, big-picture synthesis, Louis G. Herman argues that for us to create a sustainable, fulfilling future, we need to first look back into our deepest past to recover our core humanity. Important clues for recovery can be found in the lives of traditional San Bushman hunter-gatherers of South Africa, the closest living relatives to the ancestral African population from which all humans descended. Their culture can give us a sense of what life was like during the tens of thousands of years when humans lived in wilderness, without warfare, walled cities, or slavery. Herman suggests we draw from the experience of the San and other earth-based cultures and weave their wisdom together with the scientific story of an evolving universe to help create something radically new--an earth-centered, planetary politics with the personal truth quest at its heart"-- Provided by publisher.
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Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
Mark Hertsgaard
For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard investigated climate change, but it took the birth of his daughter to bring the truth home. Another revelation came when an expert advised that, without doubt, global warming had arrived, more than a hundred years earlier than expected. Now, with his daughter and the next generation in mind, Hertsgaard delivers a resounding, motivating message of hope that will spur activism among parents, college students, and all readers. He gives specifics about what we can expect in the next fifty years: Chicago's climate transformed to resemble Houston's; the loss of cherished crops and luxuries, such as California wines; the redesign of U.S. cities. Addressing problems we'll face very soon and revealing where they'll be most serious, Hertsgaard offers "pictures" of what unbiased experts expect, and looks at who is taking wise, creative precautions. Hot is, finally, a book about how we'll survive.--Publisher description.
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Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What it Means for our Future
Dale Jamieson
From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, the author explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, the author argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries. Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality; it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world--Publisher information.
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Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives By The Year 2100
Michio Kaku
Explains how science will shape human destiny and everyone's daily life by the year 2100. Kaku gives a picture of the coming century based on interviews with over three hundred of the world's top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs.
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The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
James Howard Kunstler
A shocking vision of a post-oil future. The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind. But the oil age is at an end. The depletion of nonrenewable fossil fuels is about to radically change life as we know it, and much sooner than we think. As a result of artificially cheap fossil-fuel energy we have developed global models of industry, commerce, food production, and finance that will collapse. The Long Emergency tells us just what to expect after we pass the tipping point of global peak oil production and the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale.
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Knowing Our Future: The Startling Case for Futurology
Michael Lee
The received conventional wisdom within the global futurist community is that the future is unknowable. Knowing our future outlines a full theory of how knowable the future really is. Using case studies of prescient predictions of the social future from the time of the French Revolution through to the present Michael Lee argues that there are sound theoretical grounds for establishing a science of the future and accurately predicting it time after time. Drawing on mathematics, social theory, physics, economics, social biology and philosophy and referencing great thinkers from the Marquis de Co.
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A Dictionary of Creation Myths
David Leeming and Margaret Leeming
Provides information about the creation stories of cultures around the world, including ancient civilzations, Native Americans, and the indigenous peoples of Australia, Africa, and Polynesia; arranged alphabetically and including cross-references and commentary.
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A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us: The Evolution of Life on Earth
Sidney Liebes, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme
"Imagine a walk where every step forward transports you a few million years in time. Just such a mind-expanding premise inspired this landmark book, developed from the acclaimed "Walk Through Time" exhibit on tour around the world." "Here, in one volume, is the remarkable drama of the history of the universe and life on Earth. Travel from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life, and on through the rich pageant of life's evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Span 15 billion years to discover life's greatest mysteries emerging. Over 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative highlight significant events and themes in Earth's life story. The original exhibit itself is re-created as a timeline that runs throughout the book, pinpointing key stages in the evolutionary drama and where they fall in the vast sweep of time."--Jacket.
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Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World
Wangari Maathai
An impassioned call to heal the wounds of our planet and ourselves through the tenets of our spiritual traditions. Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating and renewing their mandates to "repair the world." "It is so easy, in our modern world, to feel disconnected from the physical earth. Despite dire warnings and escalating concern over the state of our planet, many people feel out of touch with the natural world. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plant--and sustain--millions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves empowered and "at home" in a way they never did before. Maathai wants to impart that feeling to everyone, and believes that the key lies in traditional spiritual values: love for the environment, self-betterment, gratitude and respect, and a commitment to service. While educated in the Christian tradition, Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating the Jewish mandate tikkun olam ("repair the world") and renewing the Japanese term mottainai ("don't waste"). Through rededication to these values, she believes, we might finally bring about healing for ourselves and the earth."--Publisher's description.
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Eaarth: Making A Life on a Tough New Planet
Bill McKibben
McKibben's earliest warnings about global warming went largely unheeded. In this book, he argues that we can meet the challenges of a new "Eaarth"--Still recognizable but suddenly and violently out of balance--by building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale.
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Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
J. R. McNeill
"In the course of the twentieth century the human race, without intending anything of the sort, has undertaken a giant, uncontrolled experiment on the earth. In time, according to J.R. McNeill in his startling new book, the environmental dimension of twentieth-century history will overshadow the importance of events like the world wars, the rise and fall of communism, and the spread of mass literacy. Contrary to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes that "there is nothing new under the sun," McNeill sets out to show that the massive change we have wrought in our physical world has indeed created something new. To a degree unprecedented in human history, we have refashioned the earth's air, water, and soil, and the biosphere of which we are a part." "McNeill's work is a fruitful compound of history and science. McNeill infuses a substrate of ecology with a lively historical sensibility to the significance of politics, international relations, technological change, and great events. He charts and explores the breathtaking ways in which we have changed the natural world with a keen eye for character and a refreshing respect for the unforeseen in history."--Jacket.
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Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning
Mary Midgley
What is the role of scientists in society? What should we think when they talk about more than just science? Mary Midgley discusses the high spiritual ambitions which tend to gather around the notion of science.
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Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril
Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson
"An anthology bringing together the testimony of over eighty theologians, religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers to present a diverse and compelling call to honor humans' moral responsibility to the planet in the face of environmental degradation, species extinction, and global climate change"--Provided by publisher.
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Born with a Bang, Book One: The Universe Tells our Cosmic Story
Jennifer Morgan
The big bang is where it all started! Kids will learn it all in this scientifically accurate book telling the story of the universe up until the formation of young Earth. Gorgeous and ethereal illustrations and a story that brings children into a state of connectedness with the universe makes this an amazing book for parents and teachers who want to instill in kids a deep appreciation for themselves, their community, and the need to protect this planet that we all reside.
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From Lava to Life, Book Two: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story
Jennifer Morgan
The Universe tells the story of your living Earth and the unbroken chain that connects you to the very first life that began to twitch in the sea four billion years ago.
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Mammals Who Morph, Book Three: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story
Jennifer Morgan
This remarkable evolution series, narrated by the Universe itself, concludes with this third book, the amazing story of mammals and humans. It picks up after From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story with the extinction of dinosaurs, and tells how tiny mammals survived and morphed into lots of new Earthlings ... horses, whales and a kind of mammal with a powerful imaginationyou! It is a story of chaos, creativity and heroesthe greatest adventure on Earth! And it is a personal story...about our bodies, our minds, and spirits. It is our story. As the president of the American Montessori Society said, These books are alive with wonder, radiance, and deep relevance.
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The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations
Ian Morris
In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful. The Measure of Civilization presents a brand-new way of investigating these questions and provides new tools for assessing the long-term growth of societies. Using a groundbreaking numerical index of social development that compares societies in different times and places, award-winning author Ian Morris sets forth a sweeping examination of Eastern and Western development across 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age. He offers surprising conclusions about when and why the West came to dominate the world and fresh perspectives for thinking about the twenty-first century.
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The Cosmic Verses: A Rhyming History of the Universe
James Muirden
From mankind's ancestors to Professor Stephen Hawking, James Muirden cleverly and humorously examines our quest to make sense of the cosmos in wonderful rhyming couplets. If you've ever wondered about the universe, or wanted to broaden your horizons, here are the theories, discoveries, writings and sayings of Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras, Ptolemy, and the Arab astronomers and mathematicians who flourished during Europe's Dark Ages, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Boyle and many more by way of Einstein and so to the present day…and now the education is fun! Here also are the thoughts of space scientists, alchemists, writers, and theologians all weighing in on the cosmos as, through Muirden's delightful presentation, he spins the history of science on a new axis.
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Evolution of Non-Violence: Studies in Big History, Self Organization and Historical Psychology
Akop P. Nazaretyan
This book is a collection of papers (2005-2010) focused on various subjects, but related by a single research issue: developing life, culture and mind as the stages in the evolution of Metagalaxy. Megatrends and mechanisms of evolution are explored in the context of an advanced self-organization model (synergetics; complexity theory). The author pays special attention to the evolution of technologies, violence and non-violence: the papers reveal system dependence between growing instrumental might and the perfection of cultural aggression-sublimation throughout human history. The pattern is illustrated by case studies and verification procedures demonstrating its both destructive and constructive attributes. The results of the retrospective research are used to trace probable scenarios of the global civilization's future and the conditions for its sustainable development.
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Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed
Martin A. Nowak
Looks at the importance of cooperation in human beings and in nature, arguing that this social tool is as important an aspect of evolution as mutation and natural selection.
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Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment
Joachim Radkau
'Nature and Power' explores the interaction between humanity and the natural environment from prehistoric times to the present. At the same time, it aims to demonstrate that the changing relationship between humanity and nature is key to understanding world history.
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Journey to Earthland: The Great Transition to Planetary Civilization
Paul Raskin
We have entered the Planetary Phase of Civilization. Strands of interdependence are weaving humanity and Earth into a single community of fate—the overarching proto-country herein christened Earthland. In the unsettled twenty-first century, the drama of social evolution will play out on a world stage with the perils many and dark premonitions all too plausible. Still, a Great Transition to a planetary civilization of enriched lives and a healthy planet remains possible. But how? What forms of collective action and consciousness can redirect us toward such a future? Who will lead the charge? What might such a world look like? Journey to Earthland offers answers. It clarifies the world-historical challenge; explains the critical role of a global citizens movement in advancing social transformation; and paints a picture of the kind of flourishing civilization that might lie on the other side of a Great Transition.
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When God is Gone Everything is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist
Chet Raymo
"In what he describes as a "late-life credo," Raymo traces a half-century Catholicism to scientific agnosticism. The point of religion, he asserts, is to celebrate the unfathomable mystery of creation. Thus, he believes, "My work as a teacher and writer has been to discover glimmers of the Absolute in every particular, and praise what I find." Raymo takes the reader on a tour de force of science, philosophy, theology, and literature as he gathers together the rich array of voices of his many traveling companions. With wonderfully detailed anecdotes, Raymo brings to life a diverse cadre of mentors such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Charles Darwin, and Teilhard de Chardin. Whether exploring the connection of the human body to the stars or the meaning of prayer of the heart, these challenging reflections will cause believers and agnostics alike to pause and pay attention"--Dust jacket flap.
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The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Matt Ridley
The "New York Times"--Bestselling author of "Genome" and "The Red Queen" offers a provocative case for an economics of hope, arguing that the benefits of commerce, technology, innovation, and change--cultural evolution--will inevitably increase human prosperity.
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Freedom and Necessity: An Introduction to the Study of Society
Joan Robinson
Originally published in 1970, this book examines the origins of social organizations, the development of Robinson Crusoe economies and the conception of property or rightful ownership, as well as the origins of agriculture, race and class. Discussing commerce and the nation state, capitalist expansion and war between industrial power, the book is a concise yet comprehensive survey of the evolution of the structures of the world’s economies and of the ideas which underlie them.
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Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution
Loyal Rue
"Everybody's Story offers an exhilarating tour of natural history that illuminates the evolution of matter, life, and consciousness. As old myths, religious stories, and other shared narratives of humankind are increasingly viewed as intellectually implausible and morally irrelevant, they become less likely to fulfill their original purpose - to give people answers and provide a sense of stability and peace in daily life. Loyal Rue restores that imbalance with a new story based on fact."--Jacket.
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Noah's Flood: the New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History
William Ryan and Walter Pitman
For thousands of years, the legend of a great flood has endured in the biblical story of Noah and in such Middle Eastern myths as the epic of Gilgamesh. Few believed that such a catastrophic deluge had actually occurred. But now geophysicists have discovered an event that changed history, a sensational flood 7,600 years ago in what is today the Black Sea. Using sound waves and coring devices to probe the sea floor, they discovered clear evidence that this inland body of water had once been a vast freshwater lake lying hundreds of feet below the level of the world's rising oceans. The authors explore the archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence suggesting that the flood rapidly created a human diaspora that spread as far as Western Europe, Central Asia, China, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf. They suggest that the Black Sea People could well have been the mysterious proto-Sumerians, who developed the first great civilization in Mesopotamia, the source of our own.
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The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism
Aaron Sachs
"The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) achieved unparalleled fame in his own time, particularly in the United States. Today, however, he and his enormous legacy to American thought are virtually unknown." "In The Humboldt Current, Aaron Sachs seeks to reverse this undeserved obscurity by tracing Humboldt's pervasive influence on American history, specifically looking at the lives and careers of several nineteenth-century explorers who used Humboldt's notion of "unity in diversity" and his open-hearted spirit of exploration to develop a critique of their increasingly industrialized society."--Jacket.
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The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-first Century
Walter Scheidel
"Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling--mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues--have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent--and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon."--Publisher's description.
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Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of Civilization
Roy Scranton
In this bracing response to climate change, Roy Scranton combines memoir, reportage, philosophy, and Zen wisdom to explore what it means to be human in a rapidly evolving world, taking readers on a journey through street protests, the latest findings of earth scientists, a historic UN summit, millennia of geological history, and the persistent vitality of ancient literature. Expanding on his influential New York Times essay (the #1 most-emailed article the day it appeared, and selected for Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014), Scranton responds to the existential problem of global warming by arguing that in order to survive, we must come to terms with our mortality.
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Myth: A Very Short Introduction
Robert A. Segal
Where do myths come from? What is their function and what do they mean? In this Very Short Introduction Robert Segal introduces the array of approaches used to understand the study of myth. These approaches hail from disciplines as varied as anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, philosophy, science, and religious studies. Including ideas from theorists as varied as Sigmund Freud, Claude Levi-Strauss, Albert Camus, and Roland Barthes, Segal uses the famous ancient myth of Adonis to analyse their individual approaches and theories. In this new edition, he not only considers the future study of myth, but also considers the interactions of myth theory with cognitive science, the implications of the myth of Gaia, and the differences between story-telling and myth.
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Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery
Rupert Sheldrake
"In Science Set Free, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows the ways in which science is being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas that are not only limiting, but also dangerous for the future of humanity"--Front jacket flap.
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Teaching Big History
Richard B. Simon (Ed), Mojgan Behmand (Ed), and Thomas Burke (Ed)
Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history.
