1. Big History
History 140
July, 24,2011
Professor Arguello
by Ryan Babers
2. What is Big History?
• Big History is looking at the past through all time scales
• Evolution of ideologies and studies from the Cold War & Space Race
3. Coffee as an Example
of Big History
• What is the origin of coffee?
• Origins of coffee are connected to
many historic events:
• Slave trade, Sugar plantations,
workers, factories, smuggling,
climate change
• First coffee drinkers were Ethiopian
• Dutch East India company
• Planted beans where they thought it
will grow
• Coffee break created to give
workers a break
• Sugar important to sweetening of
coffee
• Sugar comes from the sugar
plantations which slaves were used
to work plantations
4. The Day The Universe Changed
• Humans as a whole are curious
• “We” like to dismantle things to see how it works
• Have changed and adapted to various situations, events
• As a comparison, Westerners are bothered by curiosity and questions whereas
Easterners already have the answers and don’t change but rather live in the
past (Like Buddhism, Islam)
5. The Journey of Man
• Geneticist and Anthropologist Dr. Spencer Wells traveled to Africa to look for the origins of
man
• Facial features of various people around the world found in San tribe
• San tribe split from rest and traveled upland into Eurasia
• Information comes from blood that tells about the past, people carry chapter in their in our
genes (DNA)
• Lucca first man to look at blood as a time machine to the past
• “Everyone is somewhat related”
• Family lines are traced through the blood line/type
• The tree is like the family which it has branches that resemble the generations and
members of that family
7. Catastrophe!
• Krakatoa is a massive volcano near Indonesia
• About 535A.D. volcano erupted that sent ash and dust into the air causing
serious damage
• Led to droughts, famine, and then floods
• 542 A.D. first record of the bubonic plague that infected rats leading to outbreak
in humans
• Keyes: “Outbreaks are related to climate change”
• Climate change can alter history
• Plague, rats driven toward cooler temperature, wet climate
• Temps allow bacteria to flourish
• Plague traced to African lakes where diseases are prominent
• Ships could of brought disease to other places
• Plague and constant siege by Avar barbarians brought Roman empire to knees
further destabilizing the empire.
9. Guns, Germs, Steel
• Out of Eden: • Conquest:
• Local native Yali asks, “Why white people have • The Incas (modern Peru) only had the llama as
so much goods but his people have little of their their domestic animal
own?” • Geography which was a big part of accessing
• New Guineans have ingenuity and smarts resources was mostly disadvantageous to Incas
• About the have and have nots • Horses and steel were technological advantages
• Hunter gathering takes a lot of effort to feed to conquistadors
everyone • Swords became a standard of Spaniard
• Site in Jordan over 11,000 years old found mud- conquistadors and was a sign of class & rank
built homes with wheat and barley farms • Spanish missionaries tried to impose their
• First farmers of the world religion on the local populations
• Domestication • Spanish conquest led to the destruction of the
• New Guineans been using one of the earliest Inca, Aztec, and Mayan empires due to war,
farming methods approx 10,000yrs disease, and inferior technology
• New Guinea crops less nutritious than other
crops
• Europeans had plows whereas New Guineans
do not
• Overexploiting crops and resources forced
migrations
10. The World in 1492 &
Columbus's World
• 1492 Christopher Columbus embarks on his
voyage that would take him to the “new world”
mistakenly
• Columbus is seen as a single minded, stubborn,
but big thinker
• Marco Polo inspired Columbus’ expedition
• Columbus knew that spices instead of gold and
diamonds were valued more
• Amazed of far east treasures he sailed hoping to
find Asia where many sought after goods were
• Columbus thought the newly discovered
Americas was Asia
• Muslims challenged Columbus and other
European empires religiously, Militarily, and
Economically
• Muslims respected trade and commerce which
they controlled the Asian trade routes
• Columbus’ arrival to the Americas had brought
the destruction of it’s inhabitants
11. The World & Trade: The European
Voyages and How the World Changes
• Columbus brought horses to the new world
• Some of his voyages took him to Trinidad and
South America
• Goods such as wheat, root vegetables, and corn
are also imported by Columbus
• Shortly after landfall Spaniard Hernan Cortez
makes launches his campaign in Mexico
southward
• Horses and cattle brought to Americas and
adopted into Native American culture
• Cattle ranched for hide rather meat
• Potato had become food of Peruvians
• Europeans profited from slave trade, plantations
which many slaves died from poor treatment
• South American crops such as beans, cocoa,
and peanuts become a trading export to
Europeans and the rest of the world
