A friend of mine has been working on this subject for many decades. He has recently found other people interested in his subject.
My friend, Stuart Silverstone, originally was working on a graphic representation of history and saw the project as largely graphics. Now he sees it as a way of perceiving history from a neutral perspective as other people in the field have joined him. There has been plenty of money poured into other people’s projects at this point.
It is about time Stuart gets some support. I have given a reference to his page here.
I have my own reservations about big history and this is the place to express it.
I find that the way a person views history is entirely reflective of his views of the present. You get a Marxian or Hegelian view of the past from Marx or Hegel .
You get a commercial view of history if you listen to me. You get a biological view of history if you listen to someone like Jared Diamond.
History is a projection of our current perspective onto the past and I don't believe it can be otherwise.
This is a much debated subject in the academic world of historians. But when you look at the incredible novelty that someone like David Hackett Fischer brings to American history you begin to realize that history is always a backward looking projection of the current perspective .