To understand the human predicament in the Anthropocene, it is helpful to investigate the rise, maintenance and fall of social complexity in the past. Tribal communities, early states and large empires have all been confronted with extra-human, inter-human and intra-human dynamic processes. Local and regional biogeography often played a major role (resources, threats), but in combination with technical and organizational skills and sociopolitical and cultural (elite) behaviour. Reconstructions of ancient civilzations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, Rome, China and others) suggest the mechanisms and contingencies in societal growth, expansion and decline. One feature is the capability to collect and interpret long-term changes or lack thereof.

This chapter develops a “big history” account of the place of justice in the great tale of humanity. The “human web” is spun across the earth as a result of our cooperative capacities. It is the point of justice to reflect on what it means for each individual to have a proper place in that web. We explore how it would be legitimate to enroll authors from vastly different periods in a unified story. The evolutionary account of justice in the “conversation of mankind” provides an answer. My account is “quasi”-historical. I recount the history of the notion in a way that develops it in an era of global interconnectedness. Over time, both scope and reach have expanded until we arrive at a contemporary notion that is global in scope and whose reach is rather extensive. The grounds-of-justice view is a way of accounting for the concept of justice today.