Four years ago I reviewed Big Ideas For Curious Minds; a great book filled with philosophical examinations of life and how to go about it. It left quite an impression on me. I drive my kids mad by forever poking them to go and read it if they’re ever prompted to think a little deeper about something. Now, they’re in for double trouble as School of Life has produced a follow-up, Big Ideas From History.
What Is Big Ideas From History?
School of Life is a company set up by modern philosophers and thinkers, intending to foster a wider understanding of the world and a better of sense of self. It asks us to take a step back from the relentlessness of modern life and think about what we’re doing, and how we interact with the people and systems that make up our lives. Big Ideas From History taps into this theme offering an examination of history through the development of ideas.
This intention is exemplified in the book’s introduction. It sets out the reason for the book’s being. How it doesn’t want to teach you answers for a quiz or explain why it would be a bad idea for you to start a land war in Asia. Instead, it wants to help you navigate and understand the world around you a little bit better. It offers four ways in which it will do this.
- Perspective: Modern news is scary, but scary things have always happened. Life goes on, history keeps being made.
- Inspiration: Amazing things have happened throughout history. Small people have built amazing things. Had amazing ideas. And you can too.
- How things got better. There is always more to do, both in world affairs, but also at home. Try not to be saddened by the stuff you can’t improve, but focus on what you can, and see that improvement for the win that it is.
- How much we don’t know yet. History is a story of discovery and there’s always more to find.
The book is a clothbound hardback of just over 300 pages. It is aimed at children (and adults) from around 9 upwards. Much like Curious Minds before it, it’s a great gift book for inquisitive children. The book is illustrated throughout and includes lots of photographs and diagrams relevant to the subject. It is still quite a text-heavy book, and readers will need to be confident to access the book’s secrets.
After the introduction, Big Ideas from History is split into 7 sections, that roughly break down into significant eras of history.
- Prehistory.
- Ancient History.
- The Middle Ages.
- Beginnings of the Modern World.
- Industrialisation.
- The Modern World.
- The Future.
Roughly half the book is given over to chapters 5 and 6.
Each chapter is broken down into several sub-chapters that focus on a particular idea.
Rather than be a dry book centered around the facts of each period, the book examines key concepts that underpinned the time in question.
For example, in the Prehistory chapter, there are sub-chapters devoted to “How Religion Started,” “How Does Evolution Work?” and “How Money Was Invented.”
The Middle Ages chapter has a section devoted to “What Old Maps Tell You,” which exemplifies how this book is more than just a history book. It describes the Ebstorf Map from around 700 years ago and explains how and why the map is inaccurate. It then goes on to explain why the person who drew the map is not an idiot for doing so. They did the best they could with limited information. This then moves onto a discussion of we all make mental maps; ideas in our mind of what somewhere or something is like. Jobs we might want (or not want), how great it would be to be famous, or what it might be like in another country. These maps will probably be incomplete and in constant need of updating, but we are not idiots for being wrong. Life is a journey in which we are ever embellishing and redrafting our mental maps.
Deep stuff borne out of an old, now sadly destroyed, artifact.
Why Read Big Ideas From History?
History books have most definitely evolved since I was young. I do still like a fact (and a quiz) but I love how books like Big Ideas From History show us how, more important than dates, learning why things happened is extremely important. It’s hard not to watch the news sometimes, and think, as a race, we have singularly failed to learn from our mistakes. Empathetic history like that outlined in Big Ideas from History can hopefully reverse that trend.
The scope of Big Ideas from History is impressive. In its 300 pages, it covers all manner of thought-provoking topics, from the adoption of arable farming, right through to the power of capitalism and the invention of the computer. This is a social history that explains how we ended up where we are and more importantly what that means for us going forward. History might be a behemoth of a topic, but this book places it on a personal level that all young readers can identify with.
If you enjoyed this review, you can check out my other book reviews, here.
If you’d like to pick up a copy of Big Ideas from History, you can do so here, in the US, and here, in the UK.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book, in order to write this review.
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