Big history or big theory? Uncovering the laws of life, Soc

What is the point of big history? There are two possibilities. It can be employed – in the way much scholarly work is – as a form of intellectual entertainment; or, alternatively, as a basis for con-structing big theory. Why big theory? Because it is essential, if we wish to examine the nature and society of mankind, to explore critical problems in society and formulate remedial policy, and to make sensible and useful predictions about the future. Once our choice has been made, the issues become whether big history should be written forwards (starting with the big bang) or back-wards (starting with today), how we get from big history to big theory, how we can uncover the laws of life – as in The Collapse of Darwinism (Snooks 2003) – and whether we can employ the same general dynamic theory to explain and predict the fluctuating for-tunes of inorganic as well as of organic structures. WHY BOTHER WITH BIG HISTORY? One of the most rapidly developing subjects in the social sciences over the past decade has been what is variously known as universal history, big history, global history, and world history. When David Christian and I first debated the nature and merits of ‘big history ’ – during a conference at Monash University in Australia at the be-ginning of the 1990s – few scholars had a professional interest in this subject. Since then there has been an explosion of papers given at national and international conferences, of books published, an