Big History looks at history across all time scales from the evolution of the universe to modern times. Coffee origins can be traced back to Ethiopia and its global spread was influenced by events like the slave trade, sugar plantations, and industrialization. The journey of humans out of Africa has been reconstructed using genetic analysis of blood and DNA from present-day populations. Major historical events like climate change-induced famines and plagues have been linked to volcanic eruptions that altered the global climate. European technological advantages like horses, steel weapons, and diseases brought by trade and conquest had enormous impacts on civilizations like the Incas that lacked those advantages. Christopher Columbus' voyages opened trade between the Americas and Europe but also brought destruction

1. Big History
History 140
July, 24,2011
Professor Arguello
by Ryan Babers

2. What is Big History?
• Big History is looking at the past through all time scales
• Evolution of ideologies and studies from the Cold War & Space Race

3. Coffee as an Example
of Big History
• What is the origin of coffee?
• Origins of coffee are connected to
many historic events:
• Slave trade, Sugar plantations,
workers, factories, smuggling,
climate change
• First coffee drinkers were Ethiopian
• Dutch East India company
• Planted beans where they thought it
will grow
• Coffee break created to give
workers a break
• Sugar important to sweetening of
coffee
• Sugar comes from the sugar
plantations which slaves were used
to work plantations

4. The Day The Universe Changed
• Humans as a whole are curious
• “We” like to dismantle things to see how it works
• Have changed and adapted to various situations, events
• As a comparison, Westerners are bothered by curiosity and questions whereas
Easterners already have the answers and don’t change but rather live in the
past (Like Buddhism, Islam)

5. The Journey of Man
• Geneticist and Anthropologist Dr. Spencer Wells traveled to Africa to look for the origins of
man
• Facial features of various people around the world found in San tribe
• San tribe split from rest and traveled upland into Eurasia
• Information comes from blood that tells about the past, people carry chapter in their in our
genes (DNA)
• Lucca first man to look at blood as a time machine to the past
• “Everyone is somewhat related”
• Family lines are traced through the blood line/type
• The tree is like the family which it has branches that resemble the generations and
members of that family

6. Catastrophe!

7. Catastrophe!
• Krakatoa is a massive volcano near Indonesia
• About 535A.D. volcano erupted that sent ash and dust into the air causing
serious damage
• Led to droughts, famine, and then floods
• 542 A.D. first record of the bubonic plague that infected rats leading to outbreak
in humans
• Keyes: “Outbreaks are related to climate change”
• Climate change can alter history
• Plague, rats driven toward cooler temperature, wet climate
• Temps allow bacteria to flourish
• Plague traced to African lakes where diseases are prominent
• Ships could of brought disease to other places
• Plague and constant siege by Avar barbarians brought Roman empire to knees
further destabilizing the empire.

8. Guns, Germs, Steel

9. Guns, Germs, Steel
• Out of Eden: • Conquest:
• Local native Yali asks, “Why white people have • The Incas (modern Peru) only had the llama as
so much goods but his people have little of their their domestic animal
own?” • Geography which was a big part of accessing
• New Guineans have ingenuity and smarts resources was mostly disadvantageous to Incas
• About the have and have nots • Horses and steel were technological advantages
• Hunter gathering takes a lot of effort to feed to conquistadors
everyone • Swords became a standard of Spaniard
• Site in Jordan over 11,000 years old found mud- conquistadors and was a sign of class & rank
built homes with wheat and barley farms • Spanish missionaries tried to impose their
• First farmers of the world religion on the local populations
• Domestication • Spanish conquest led to the destruction of the
• New Guineans been using one of the earliest Inca, Aztec, and Mayan empires due to war,
farming methods approx 10,000yrs disease, and inferior technology
• New Guinea crops less nutritious than other
crops
• Europeans had plows whereas New Guineans
do not
• Overexploiting crops and resources forced
migrations

10. The World in 1492 &
Columbus's World
• 1492 Christopher Columbus embarks on his
voyage that would take him to the “new world”
mistakenly
• Columbus is seen as a single minded, stubborn,
but big thinker
• Marco Polo inspired Columbus’ expedition
• Columbus knew that spices instead of gold and
diamonds were valued more
• Amazed of far east treasures he sailed hoping to
find Asia where many sought after goods were
• Columbus thought the newly discovered
Americas was Asia
• Muslims challenged Columbus and other
European empires religiously, Militarily, and
Economically
• Muslims respected trade and commerce which
they controlled the Asian trade routes
• Columbus’ arrival to the Americas had brought
the destruction of it’s inhabitants

11. The World & Trade: The European
Voyages and How the World Changes
• Columbus brought horses to the new world
• Some of his voyages took him to Trinidad and
South America
• Goods such as wheat, root vegetables, and corn
are also imported by Columbus
• Shortly after landfall Spaniard Hernan Cortez
makes launches his campaign in Mexico
southward
• Horses and cattle brought to Americas and
adopted into Native American culture
• Cattle ranched for hide rather meat
• Potato had become food of Peruvians
• Europeans profited from slave trade, plantations
which many slaves died from poor treatment
• South American crops such as beans, cocoa,
and peanuts become a trading export to
Europeans and the rest of the world