Origin Story

Why it’s on the list: Christian’s single-volume Big History — from the Big Bang to the present in eight thresholds of rising complexity, with human history as one late stage of a much longer sequence.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @SpencrGreenberg’s question, “What non-fiction book taught you the most about how the world (or how humanity or society) really works?” (June 5, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet). It was listed there as “Origin Story by David Christian”.

Connections

• History — The discipline, stretched to cosmological scale.
• Complexity — The organising variable across the eight thresholds.
• Evolution — One of the thresholds.
• Energy — The flows Christian uses to define complexity.
• A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.