David Christian (historian)

David Christian (historian)

David Gilbert Christian (born 1946) is an Anglo-American historian.

Christian was born in Brooklyn, New York, to British and American parents. He grew up in Africa and in England, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. at Oxford University.

Subsequently he taught at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia for twenty-five years before moving to San Diego State University in 2002. Originally a historian of Russia who wrote several books on that subject, including a history of vodka, Christian has in recent years become interested in writing history, as he puts it, "on very large scales." To this end, he has developed a World History course informally entitled "Big History" which tells the story of the universe - the entire universe, from the moment of the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to the present day.

Using this novel approach, Dr. Christian structures the course to reflect, roughly, the relatively minuscule role played by the human race in the Earth's overall development: homo sapiens does not appear until more than midway through a 15-week semester. Dr. Christian's book Maps of Time, published by the University of California Press, mirrors the content of the course.

Dr. Christian's presentation of Big History was recently made into a 48 lecture course (30 minutes each) for The Teaching Company.

Bill Gates presented David Christian at the TED 2011 Conference in Long Beach, CA. At that time, Dr. Christian announced his initiative, the Big History Project, to teach big history to secondary school students in Australia and the United States. He is currently serving as President of the International Big History Association.