There is a genre of "big-picture" books, exploring grand themes of humanity. While some of these books are good, I find most books in the genre unsatisfying. In this note I examine what makes such a book difficult to write, and when they work well. I'm writing the note because for several decades I've had thoughts of writing such a book; something has, however, consistently troubled me about the aspiration. I wrote this note to help myself understand the problem and, insofar as one exists, a solution.
Let me begin with three big-picture books that fall into an intermediate regime: I admire them, but they suffer from this problem. The books are: Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything"; Carl Sagan's "Cosmos"; and Yuval Noah Harari's "Sapiens". All three suffer from the curse of the generalist: on most particular topics they discuss, a specialist could write something superior. As a reader, you think: "Oh, I should switch to reading the specialists on this topic".
This problem is even more acute with books – I won't name them, but it is easy to find examples – whose chapters read as laundry lists of "big problems" or "major topic areas". Each chapter seems shallow and derivative compared to good expert writing. I can see why such books are appealing to write, since the author gets to explore and learn a lot. It is, perhaps, a welcome respite from the pressure toward specialized expertise. Generalists are usually outcompeted in knowledge work; while this is natural, it's also an alienating state of affairs; many of us want to metabolize all humanity's knowledge; but humanity knows too much for this to be feasible. And so, as a reader, such books are often disappointing.
The best big-picture books I know of are only incidentally about the big picture. They are instead books whose spine is a novel core thesis which the author has spent years developing, and on which they are one of the leading experts. But while the thesis is a specific set of ideas, it is best developed and illustrated in a diverse range of contexts.
An example is Douglas Hofstadter's book "Goedel, Escher, Bach". Superficially, it appears to be a big-picture book, ranging over an astonishing variety of areas. But the core of the book is Hofstadter's focused ideas about how human consciousness arises. Hofstadter is not one of the world's leading experts on Goedel, Escher, or Bach, nor on many of the other subjects he engages through his book. But it doesn't matter: the journey he takes us on is compelling, because he is an expert on the core thesis of his book, and it's exhilarating to see that thesis developed in so many contexts.
Similar remarks apply to David Deutsch's books "The Fabric of Reality" and "The Beginning of Infinity". Again, in many ways these seem superficially like big-picture books. But the core is that Deutsch is developing very specific ideas about the nature of explanation and the growth of human understanding. But like Hofstadter, while those ideas are very specific, they can be illustrated across a wide variety of contexts. And, again, it's exhilarating to see his thesis developed so extensively, and across so many contexts.
Another example, different in nature, is the YouTube videos of John Boswell, also known as MelodySheep. He has videos on big-picture subjects such as the entire history (or future) of the universe. His unique contribution isn't an intellectual thesis in the sense of Hofstadter or Deutsch. Rather, Boswell is an accomplished composer, VFX artist, and editor. And so his work is fresh and enjoyable because he provides a unique experience through his music and visual effects. That's the creative core his work leans into.
Earlier, I gave the Bryson, Sagan, and Harari books qualified praise. While I admire them all, in each case it's because of some unique strength or strengths of the author, not because of the wide range of subjects covered. Bryson's book, for example, benefits greatly from Bryson's superb writing, ebullient good humour, and also his all-too-rare capacity to clearly articulate what human beings don't yet know. These are ways in which he exceeds nearly all conventional specialists. Sagan's book, at its incandescent best, comes very near to being the exception that proves the rule: he is so deeply knowledgeable across so many areas, and has integrated that knowledge so tightly, that he sometimes exceeds what any specialist could do. But there are are also many stretches of the book which don't reach those heights.
The conclusion is that aspiring to write a big-picture book is usually a fundamentally mistaken aspiration. Human collective understanding is so far beyond any individual than it's likely what you write will be shallow and derivative. Good big-picture books instead emerge incidentally inside-out from a very different aspiration: some fundamental thesis or theses addressing some specific problem, but which are then illustrated in a wide variety of contexts. Or, more broadly: from some unique and compelling advantage that you orient your writing around. It's William Blake, writ large: to see a world in a grain of sand. This is perhaps rather obvious advice, though like much obvious advice it's often disregarded, and so helpful to confront plainly. It's helped me understand why so many books of this kind seem attractive in conception, but dull in reality. And it has given me some pause to reflect about my own aspirations in the area. Time to go back to finding grains of sand that I find fascinating and compelling.
Of course, it's also general advice for writing any book: such a book needs to do something only that book can do. But it's also true that you don't need to begin writing a book knowing in detail what your unique contribution will be. You can write to discover, starting with half-formed hunches, and only gradually developing a strong creative thesis. This means you won't necessarily know whether what you're writing will turn into a big-picture book. In any case, it's an aspiration to be resisted as a core goal, but embraced if that's where your exploration of a strong thesis leads you.
Thanks to Grant Sanderson for a helpful conversation.