Cynthia Stokes Brown (March 20, 1938 – October 15, 2017) was an American educator-historian.

Background

She earned her BA at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in history (summa cum laude) and her M.A.T. and Ph.D. from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in the history of education with fellowships from the American Association of University Women and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. After teaching tenth-grade world history for two years and living in

northeast Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Nordeste do Brasil; ) is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises ni ...

for two years with the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...

, Brown directed the single-subject credential program at

Dominican University of California Dominican University of California is a private university in San Rafael, California. It was founded in 1890 as Dominican College by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael. It is one of the oldest universities in California. Dominican is accredite ...

at San Rafael from 1982 to 1992. She taught full-time in both the history and education departments until 2001, when she retired from full-time teaching to write ''Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present''. Using the term

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 approach ...

, coined by David Christian at

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...

, Brown told the whole story from the

Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...

to the present in simple, non-academic language to convey our common humanity and our connection to every other part of the natural world. Teaching part-time after 2001, Brown pioneered the teaching of

, where it is now a required course for every incoming freshman. She served as a founding board member of the International Big History Association (IBHA). Brown died of pancreatic cancer on October 15, 2017, at her home Berkeley, California, surrounded by family. Brown was an

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

recipient in 1987 for ''Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement''.

Writings

* ''Big History, Small World: From the Big Bang to You''. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2017. * ''Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights''. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. * ''Connecting With the Past: History Workshop in Middle and High Schools''. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994. * ''Like It Was: A Complete Guide to Writing Oral History''. New York: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 1988. * ''Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement''. Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press, 1986. (

, 1987); re-issued by Africa World Press, 1990. * ''Literacy in 30 Hours: Paulo Freire's Process in Northeast Brazil''. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1975. * Article
"What Is a Civilization, Anyway?"

References

*
Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present
'. New York: New Press, 2007.
Cynthia Stokes Brown." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Gale Biography In Context. Web. June 6, 2011.

Macquarie University. Christian, 2017. Tribute to Cynthia Stokes Brown. Web. September 15, 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Cynthia Stokes 1938 births 2017 deaths 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers American Book Award winners American educators American expatriates in Brazil American women historians Big History Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni World historians