The Big Picture - Macrohistories

Whereas microhistories zoom in on a topic, putting it under the microscope to study every detail from every angle, macrohistories zoom out. These are the "big" histories, the very long view, studying the past on a grand scale. Macrohistories do not focus on the individual, but on whole civilizations, and changes over centuries, even millennia. If you are a "big picture" person, these are the books for you!

Updated July 7, 2026
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Saskatchewan Information & Library Services Consortium Regina Public Library
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Atlantic : great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories
Winchester, Simon.
Paper Book
"Variably genial, cautionary, lyrical, admonitory, terrifying, horrifying and inspiring...A lifetime of thought, travel, reading, imagination and memory inform this affecting account." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and...
Cosmos
Sagan, Carl
Paper Book
Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan's classic bestseller that "dives into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mind-staggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist" (Associated Press)--with an Introduction by Ann Druyan and a Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson ...
Culture : the story of us, from cave art to K-pop
Puchner, Martin
Paper Book
In Culture, acclaimed author, professor, and public intellectual Martin Puchner takes us on a breakneck tour through pivotal moments in world history, providing a global introduction to the arts and humanities in one engaging volume. What good are the arts? Why should we care...
The dawn of everything : a new history of humanity
Graeber, David
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution--from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality--and...
Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies
Diamond, Jared M.
Paper Book
"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."--Bill Gates Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering...
Homo deus : a brief history of tomorrow
Harari, Yuval N.
Paper Book
Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original,...
Land : how the hunger for ownership shaped the modern world
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
"In many ways, Land combines bits and pieces of many of Winchester's previous books into a satisfying, globe-trotting whole. . . . Winchester is, once again, a consummate guide."--Boston Globe The author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and...
Money : The Story of Humanity
McWilliams, David.
Paper Book
"Learned, lively and often irreverent, David McWilliams''s The History of Money is rich with surprising details about currency, then and now." --The New York Times In this fresh, eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the...
Nexus
Harari, Yuval Noah.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. "Strikingly original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the...
The origins of political order : from prehuman times to the French Revolution
Fukuyama, Francis.
Paper Book
ANew York Times Notable Book for 2011 AGlobe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title AKirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which...
Pacific : silicon chips and surfboards, coral reefs and atom bombs, brutal dictators, fading empires, and the coming collision of the world's superpowers
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
One of Library Journal's 10 Best Books of 2015 Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this...
Proto : How One Ancient Language Went Global
Spinney, Laura.
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of 2025 by the Guardian and Scientific American "The story of how one language left the steppes of Ukraine and became the earth's dominant language family has become clearer and more exciting than ever before. Hooray for a book where the...
Sapiens : a brief history of humankind
Harari, Yuval N.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Destined to become a modern classic in the vein of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sapiens is a lively, groundbreaking history of humankind told from a unique perspective.      100,000...
Why nations fail : the origins of power, prosperity and poverty
Acemoglu, Daron.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * From two winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, "who have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country's prosperity" "A wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through...
The World : A Family History
Montefiore, Simon Sebag.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families * From the author of The Romanovs A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, Smithsonian

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