David Gilbert Christian (born June 30, 1946) is a historian and scholar ofRussian history. He has become notable for teaching and promoting the emerging discipline ofBig History.^[2][3] In 1989 he began teaching the first course on the topic, examining history from theBig Bang to the present using a multidisciplinary approach^[4][5] with the assistance of scholars in diverse specializations from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.^[4] Big History frameshuman history in terms of cosmic, geological, and biological history.^[6] Christian is credited with coining the termBig History^[7][8] and he serves as president of theInternational Big History Association.^[6] Christian's best-sellingTeaching Company course entitledBig History caught the attention of philanthropistBill Gates, who is funding Christian's efforts to develop a program to bring the course tosecondary-school students worldwide.^[6][9]

Christian was born inBrooklyn, New York, to British and American parents. He grew up in Nigeria and England. He completed his pre-university education atAtlantic College, an international sixth form in Wales.^[10] He then earned his B.A. from Oxford University, an M.A. in Russian history from theUniversity of Western Ontario, and a Ph.D. innineteenth century Russian history fromOxford University in 1974.^[2][11][12]

Christian's early research interests focused on thehistory of Russia and theSoviet Union, with particular emphases on theRussian peasantry, including their diet and the role ofvodka in their lives. He published several books on these subjects. In 1984, he co-wrote, along with R. E. F. Smith, a history about the Russian peasantry entitledBread and Salt that showed, among other things, how such foods along withdairy products were used asseasonings.^[13] He taught atMacquarie University in Sydney from 1975 to 2000.^[11]

During the 1980s, he read widely and began a program to describe human history in the context of very large time scales from cosmology and astronomy, covering the almost fourteen billion years since theBig Bang. He began teaching his first course, what he described asBig History, in 1989.^[14] It was a novel approach that emphasizes summary findings frombiology,cosmology,astronomy,geology, andanthropology to show what happened beforehomo sapiens became prevalent on the Earth. Generally, humans are not mentioned much in the course until halfway through the 15-week semester.^[2] He wrote the bookMaps of Time that mirrored the course content. The course was chosen byThe Teaching Company's Great Courses and Christian recorded 48 half-hour lectures.^[15]

In 1998 he publishedA History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia in which he studied the steppe and forest peoples of Inner Eurasia as opposed to 'outer Eurasia' – the crescent of agrarian civilizations from Europe, the Middle East, and India to China.

Christian transferred toSan Diego State University in California in 2001.^[11] He taught students in subjects such as world history and the history of the environment, as well as the history of Inner Eurasia.^[11] In 2005, his 600-page bookMaps of Time was published, which a reviewer described as a "remarkable work of synthesis and scholarship."^[16] Christian has additional teaching affiliations with theUniversity of Vermont andEwha Womans University inSeoul.^[11] In 2009, he transferred back to Macquarie University.^[11][9]

In 2010, Christian predicted that historical scholarship would have less emphasis on document-based research and more on empirical research, and he wrote:^[11][16]

...Over the next fifty years we will see a return of the ancient tradition of "universal history"; but this will be a new form of universal history that is global in its practice and scientific in its spirit and methods.

PhilanthropistBill Gates presented David Christian at theTED 2011 Conference in Long Beach, California. At that time, Christian announced hisBig History Project initiative to teach the subject to secondary school students in Australia and the United States. Currently, he is serving as president of theInternational Big History Association.

• 1999: Fellow of theAustralian Academy of the Humanities^[17]
• 2005:World History Association Book Prize,Maps of Time
• 2014: Distinguished Professor, Macquarie University^[18]

• Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia, 1984, co-written with R. E. F. Smith^[19]
• A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, volume 1, 1998
• Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, 2005, University of California Press^[20]
• Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, first edition, 2014, McGraw-Hill Education (co-written byCynthia Stokes Brown andCraig Benjamin)
• Origin Story: A Big History of Everything, 2018, Little, Brown and Company,ISBN 9780316392006
• "Future Stories: What's Next", 2022, Little, Brown Spark.

• Big History Project

• David Christian atTED
  • TED Talk: David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes (TED2011)
• Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity The Teaching Company course taught by David Christian

• 1946 births
• Alumni of the University of Oxford
• 21st-century American historians
• 21st-century American male writers
• Big History
• British historians
• Living people
• Academic staff of Macquarie University
• San Diego State University faculty
• University of Western Ontario alumni
• American expatriates in Nigeria
• Educators from Brooklyn
• People educated at Atlantic College
• Historians from New York (state)
• World historians
• American male non-fiction writers
• Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Articles with hCards