Idea for April 2022: deep history

My idea of the month is deep history

This is the idea that the past stretches back not hundreds but millions of years - which first struck people through the work of Darwin and (earlier and less well known) James Hutton. We’re familiar with it, but actually rarely think about it. And there’s an even more vertiginous concept called Big History - the idea that history began with the Big Bang. I’ve been thinking about the value of the past - what did history do for us? - and I think it’s to do with that long view we get, like the clock of the long now - which simultaneously makes us feel tiny (a spec in time) and big (with imaginations grand enough to grasp all this).

My image of the month is blue

Sea and sky at Sheringham, Norfolk.