Spier, Fred

Last name:  Spier
Name:  Fred

Fred Spier is Senior Lecturer in Big History. He has organized and taught the annual ‘Big History Course’ at the University of Amsterdam since 1994, the annual ‘Big History University Lecture Series’ at the Eindhoven University of Technology since 2003, and the ‘Big Questions in History Course’ at Amsterdam University College since 2009. First trained as a biochemist with research experience in plant genetic engineering and the synthesis of oligonucleotides, Dr. Spier subsequently became a cultural anthropologist and social historian. He performed a ten-year study on religion, politics and ecology in Peru, which led to the publication of two books. He is currently Vice President of the International Big History Association (IBHA). His current research is devoted to developing a paradigm that helps to explain big history. In his article, ‘How Big History Works: Energy Flows and the Rse and Demise of Complexity’, which was published in Social Evolution & History (2005), the outline of this theory was proposed. An improved version of this argument is presented in his book, Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). The paperback version was released in January 2011. The translation in Spanish El lugar del hombre en el cosmos: La ‘Gran Historia’ y el futuro de la humanidad was published in 2011 by Editorial Crítica, Spain, while a translation into Chinese by Truth & Wisdom Press is forthcoming.

Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, using the best available scientific and scholarly evidence and methodology. What have been our origins over the past 14 billion years? What does our future entail?
Dr. Fred Spier of the University of Amsterdam will address these questions.