Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of NatureSimon and Schuster, 14.09.2001 - 560 Seiten In Civilizations, Felipe Fernández-Armesto once again proves himself a brilliantly original historian, capable of large-minded and comprehensive works; here he redefines the subject that has fascinated historians from Thucydides to Gibbon to Spengler to Fernand Braudel: the nature of civilization. To Fernández-Armesto, a civilization is "civilized in direct proportion to its distance, its difference from the unmodified natural environment"...by its taming and warping of climate, geography, and ecology. The same impersonal forces that put an ocean between Africa and India, a river delta in Mesopotamia, or a 2,000-mile-long mountain range in South America have created the mold from which humanity has fashioned its own wildly differing cultures. In a grand tradition that is certain to evoke comparisons to the great historical taxonomies, each chapter of Civilizations connects the world of the ecologist and geographer to a panorama of cultural history. In Civilizations, the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not merely a Christian allegory, but a testament to the thousand-year-long deforestation of the trees that once covered 90 percent of the European mainland. The Indian Ocean has served as the world's greatest trading highway for millennia not merely because of cultural imperatives, but because the regular monsoon winds blow one way in the summer and the other in the winter. In the words of the author, "Unlike previous attempts to write the comparative history of civilizations, it is arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period, or society by society." Thus, seventeen distinct habitats serve as jumping-off points for a series of brilliant set-piece comparisons; thus, tundra civilizations from Ice Age Europe are linked with the Inuit of the Pacific Northwest; and the Mississippi mound-builders and the deforesters of eleventh-century Europe are both understood as civilizations built on woodlands. Here, of course, are the familiar riverine civilizations of Mesopotamia and China, of the Indus and the Nile; but also highland civilizations from the Inca to New Guinea; island cultures from Minoan Crete to Polynesia to Renaissance Venice; maritime civilizations of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea...even the Bushmen of Southern Africa are seen through a lens provided by the desert civilizations of Chaco Canyon. More, here are fascinating stories, brilliantly told -- of the voyages of Chinese admiral Chen Ho and Portuguese commodore Vasco da Gama, of the Great Khan and the Great Zimbabwe. Here are Hesiod's tract on maritime trade in the early Aegean and the most up-to-date genetics of seed crops. Erudite, wide-ranging, a work of dazzling scholarship written with extraordinary flair, Civilizations is a remarkable achievement...a tour de force by a brilliant scholar. |
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Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2002 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Africa agriculture America ancient Angkor Arab Asia Aztec became Benin building built Cambridge century A.D. China Chinese civi civiliza coast colonies communities conquest culture desert early east Easter Island elite empire environment Ethiopia Europe European Fernández-Armesto forest frontier global gold Greek Harappan highland human hundred Ibid Ibn Battuta imagination imperial Inca Indian Ocean Islam islands king land late live lization London lowlands maize maritime Maya medieval Mediterranean ment merchants Mesoamerica millennium B.C. Mongol monumental mountains Mwene Mutapa native nature navigation neighbors never North numbers Olmec political Portuguese Rabban Bar Sauma recorded region rich River Roman routes rulers Sahel sail seems ships shores slaves society soil Srivijaya steppe stone Sumer surviving temple thousand Tibet tion trade tradition trees ture Valley Vasco da Gama voyage wealth West Western wild wind Yellow River York
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 1 - Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man. This thing crosses the sea in the winter's storm, making his path through the roaring waves. And she, the greatest of gods, the earth — ageless she is, and unwearied — he wears her away as the ploughs go up and down from year to year and his mules turn up the soil.
Seite 27 - I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind.