ABSTRACT
The field of big history has been in existence for around a quarter of a century and is practiced as a coherent form of research and teaching by historians, physicists, geologists, biologists, anthropologists, and other disciplinary specialists around the world. Big history continues to expand as a coherent undergraduate course at universities around the world. One example of the increasing relevance of big history at university level has been the establishment of big history as a mandatory general education course for incoming first-year students at the Dominican University of California, because in many ways big history offers the quintessential introduction to liberal education. The Big History Project is a Seattle-based organization that, in collaboration with Macquarie University in Australia and contributions from big historians around the world, has brought high-quality big history instruction to high school students. Big history has been used at various universities to study more specialized subjects for over a decade.
