Craig G. Benjamin is an Australian-American historian who is professor of history in the Frederik J. Meijer Honors College at
Grand Valley State University, where he teaches East Asian civilization,
big history
Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approac ...
, ancient Central Asian
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, and world history
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
. In 2014 and 2015 he served as president of the
World History Association
The World History Association (WHA) is an academic association that promotes the study of world history through the encouragement of research, teaching, and publication. It was founded in 1982.
The WHA provides many opportunities for connecting w ...
.
Biography
Benjamin grew up in
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
, Australia. His father was a well-known TV journalist. Benjamin dropped out of college at the age of 19, spending the next 25 years as a professional musician and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
educator. He pursued his
undergraduate education
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...
at
The Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
in
Canberra and
Macquarie University in Sydney, and gained his PhD in
ancient history
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
from Macquarie University in 2003 with his dissertation ''The
Yuezhi
The Yuezhi (;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat ...
: Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria''.
Having emigrated to the United States after receiving his PhD, Benjamin has since become professor of history in the Frederik J. Meijer Honors College at
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in
Allendale,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
. He teaches East Asian civilization,
big history
Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approac ...
, ancient Central Asian
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, and world history
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
. Benjamin is the recipient of several teaching awards at GVSU, most notably the 2009 Student Senate Award for Faculty Excellence. He received the Faculty of Distinction Award of the
Omicron Delta Kappa Society in 2012 and was a nominee for the 2013 US Professor of the Year Award. In 2015 Benjamin received the Niemeyer Outstanding Faculty Award from GVSU, the highest award that university grants to its faculty members.
Benjamin has presented lectures at conferences throughout the world, and he is the author of several published books, and numerous chapters and essays on the ancient history of Central Asia, Big History and
world history
World history may refer to:
* Human history, the history of human beings
* History of Earth, the history of planet Earth
* World history (field), a field of historical study that takes a global perspective
* ''World History'' (album), a 1998 albu ...
. He has recorded lectures for the
History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
and the Discovery Channel, and has been a lecturer for the Big History Project, and on cruises sponsored by both Scientific American and the New York Times. Benjamin has recorded three courses for the Teaching Company's Great Courses series: ''Foundations of Eastern Civilization,'' ''The Big History of Civilizations'', and ''The Mongol Empire''. Together with
David Christian and
Cynthia Brown, he is the author of the first Big History
textbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
''Big History: Between Nothing and Everything'', which was published by McGraw-Hill in August 2014.
Benjamin served as Treasurer and Vice President of the International Big History Association from its inception in January 2011 until July 2018. He is a consultant for the
College Board and former co-Chair of the Test Development Committees of the
Advanced Placement World History exam, and current Chair of
SAT World History exam. In 2014 and 2015 Benjamin served as president of the
World History Association
The World History Association (WHA) is an academic association that promotes the study of world history through the encouragement of research, teaching, and publication. It was founded in 1982.
The WHA provides many opportunities for connecting w ...
.
Benjamin lives in
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
with his wife Pamela. Together they have three children living in Australia and New Zealand. In addition to his academic and musical interests Benjamin is an avid mountain
hiker, and has trekked and climbed extensively in many of the great mountain ranges of the planet. He continues to play jazz, and served as President of the West Michigan Jazz Society, and also as Chair of the Easton Special Events committee which organizes the Eastown Street Fair in Grand Rapids, which draws around 10,000 people each September.
Bibliography
Books
*Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, Christian, D., and Benjamin, C., eds. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Silk Roads Studies Series vol. II, 1998)
*Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, Christian, D., and Benjamin. C., eds. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Silk Roads Studies Series vol. IV, 2000)
*Walls and Frontiers in Inner Asian History, Benjamin, C., and Lieu, S., eds. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Silk Roads Studies Series vol. VI, 2002)
*The Yuezhi: Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria, Benjamin, C. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Silk Roads Studies Series vol. XIV, 2007)
*Between Nothing and Everything: Big History, Christian, D., Brown, C., and Benjamin, C. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014)
*Cambridge History of the World Vol. 4: A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 BCE-900 CE, Benjamin, C., ed. Series editor: Weisner-Hanks, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
*The First Silk Roads Era: Empires and the Ancient World 50 BCE-250CE, Benjamin, C. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)
*The Routledge Handbook of Big History, Benjamin, C., E. Quaedackers and D. Baker ends. (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2019)
Articles
*‘The Kushan Empire’, chap. 26 in ''The Oxford World History of Empire'', P. Fiber Bang, C.A. Bayly and W. Scheidel, eds., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2017)
*‘Collective Learning and the Silk Roads’, in L. Grinin and A. Korotayev, eds., ''Evolution: From Big Bang to Nanorobots'', (Volgograd Russia: Uchitel, 2015) pp. 101–111
*‘The Little Big History of Jericho’, Chap. 17 in B. Rodrigue, A. Koratyev, L. Grinin, eds., ''Big History Anthology,'' (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2015) pp. 247–263
*‘The World from 1200 BCE to 900 CE’, chap. 1 in ''Cambridge History of the World Vol. 4: A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 BCE-900 CE.'' C. Benjamin, ed. Series editor: Weisner-Hanks, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 1–28
*‘The Mediterranean c. 1200 BCE – c. 900 CE’, chap. 12 (co-authored with Merry Weisner-Hanks) in ''Cambridge History of the World Vol. 4: A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 BCE-900 CE.'' C. Benjamin, ed. Series editor: Weisner-Hanks, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 325–349
*‘"But from this time forth history becomes a connected whole": State Expansion and the Origins of Universal History’, in W.G. Clarence-Smith, B.W. Andaya, and M. Weisner-Hanks, eds., ''Journal of Global History,'' Vol. 9, Issue 2, Nov. 2014, pp. 357–378
*"The great deliverer, the righteous, the just, the autocrat, the god, worthy of worship". Kanishka I, Kushan Dynastic Religion, and Buddhism, in M. Gervers and G. Long, eds., ''Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia'' vol. X, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013) pp. 19–45
*‘"Considerable Hordes of Nomads were Approaching." The Conquest of Greco-Bactria – the First ‘Event’ in World History’, in Sun Yue, ed., ''Global History Review'', Vol. 5, (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2012) translated into Chinese, pp. 97–111
*Convergence of Logic, Faith and Values in the Modern Creation Myth, in Genet, C., Swimme, B., Genet, R., and Palmer, L. eds., Evolutionary Epic: Sciences Story and Humanitys Response (Los Angeles: Collins Fndtn. Press, 2009) 5000 words
*'The Kushans in World History', World History Bulletin Vol. XXV No. 1, Spring 2009, ed. Tarver, H.M., 30–32
*Xiongnu and Yuezhi Military Relations, 220–162 BCE, in L. Maracz and B. Obrusanszky, eds., The Heritage of the Huns (Budapest: Hun-Idea Press, 2009, in Hungarian) 37–54
*Historiography and World History Teacher Training, Social Studies Review Special Edition, ed. A. Black The New World History (Spring-Summer 2010, vol. 49, No. 1) 8–13
*The Carthaginian Invasion of Europe. Polybius, Diodorus, and the Origins of Universal History, in World History Connected, Volume 6, No. 5 (June 2010) 5000 words
*Art of Central Asia, in W. McNeill, R. Crozier, D. Christian, and J. McNeill, eds., Art in World History (Great Barrington MA: Berkshire Press, 2011) 31–44
*The World from 1200 BCE to 900 CE, chap. 1 in Cambridge History of the World Vol. 4: A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 BCE-900 CE. C. Benjamin, ed. Series editor: Weisner-Hanks, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2014) 9000 words
*Big History, Collective Learning, and the Silk Roads, in Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of the International Big History Association, D. Baker, E. Quaedackers, C. Brown and A, Koryatev eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2014) 5000 words
External links
Grand Valley State University websiteCraig Benjamin explaining Big History YouTube
References
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Living people
Australian historians
Big History
Macquarie University alumni
Grand Valley State University faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Presidents of the World History Association