PositiveThe Times (UK)The origin story of this book is the most striking, and telling, thing about it. In 2008, Bill Gates, the tech billionaire, was on his private treadmill watching a DVD series on Big History by David Christian, the author of this grandiose book, and thought to himself: \'God, everybody should watch this thing!\' He offered Christian $10m to develop a free, online, high-school \'big history\' course so that every schoolchild could learn the same kind of history that he finds impressive. Don’t call Gates monopolistic...Now Big History is a book. It tells \'the epic story of the universe and our place in it from 13.8bn years ago to the remote future\' ... If you want a version of history that implies that the apex of creation is a big man with the power to reshape the globe, then, like Gates, you will love it.
