Prehistory of Big History

Discussion

Barry Rodriguez:

"Far from just a European phenomenon, the new global engagement had grown from the silk-road system into a planetary sphere of interaction that is more properly designated as ‘global civilization.’10Neo-Confucian scholar Miura Baien (1723–1789) merged Japanese concepts with Chinese and Euro-pean ideas to develop a new vision of the world and existence, as in his masterpiece, 玄語 [D e e p Wo r d s]. Miura’s work has been compared favourably with the later studies of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Anthropologist Keiji Iwata, for example, sees Miura’s work as an expression of Eastern cosmology / existence, with Humboldt’s studies expressing Western perspectives. Humboldt had studied at the University of Göttingen, where his professors sought to unify knowledge and deploy it so individuals, society, and nature could coexist. His five-volume study, were big histories, since they began with cosmology (as it was then understood) and subsequently linked in the human genealogy.”

(https://jbh.journals.villanova.edu/index.php/JBH/article/view/2721/2582)