The world (2nd ed )
Auteur : FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO Felipe
The Worldinterweaves two stories-of our interactions with nature and with each other. The environment-centered story is about humans distancing themselves from the rest of nature and searching for a relationship that strikes a balance between constructive and destructive exploitation. The culture-centered story is of how human cultures have become mutually influential and yet mutually differentiating. Both stories have been going on for thousands of years. We do not know whether they will end in triumph or disaster.
There is no prospect of covering all of world history in one book. Rather, the fabric of this book is woven from selected strands. Readers will see these at every turn, twisted together into yarn, stretched into stories. Human-focused historical ecology-the environmental theme-will drive readers back, again and again, to the same concepts: sustenance, shelter, disease, energy, technology, art. (The last is a vital category for historians, not only because it is part of our interface with the rest of the world, but also because it forms a record of how we see reality and of how the way we see it changes.) In the global story of human interactions-the cultural theme-we return constantly to the ways people make contact with each another: migration, trade, war, imperialism, pilgrimage, gift exchange, diplomacy, travel-and to their social frameworks: the economic and political arenas, the human groups and groupings, the states and civilizations, the sexes and generations, the classes and clusters of identity.
Volume 2: Chapters 13-30
Volume A: Chapters 1-10
Volume B: Chapters 11-20
Volume C: Chapters 20-30
Part 1: Foragers and Farmers, to 5,000 BCE
Chapter 1
Out of the ice: Peopling the Earth
So you think you're Human?
- Human Evolution
Out of Africa
- Peopling the Old World
- Migration, Population, and Social Change
The Last Great Ice Age
- Ice-Age Hunters
- Ice-Age Art
- Ice-Age Culture and Society
- Peopling the New World
Survival of the Foragers
In Perspective: After the Ice
Chapter 2
Out of the Mud: Farming and Herding After the Ice Age
The Problem of Agriculture
- A Case in Point: Aboriginal Australians
- Preagriculural Settlements
- The Disadvantages of Farming
Husbandry in Different Environments
- Herders' Environments
- Tillers' Environments
The Spread of Agriculture
- Europe
- Asia
- The Americas
- Africa
- The Pacific Islands
So Why did Farming Start?
- Population Pressure
- The Outcome of Abundance
- The Power of Politics
- Cult Agriculture
- Climatic Instability
- Agriculture by Accident
- Production As an Outgrowth of Procurement
In Perspective: Seeking Stability
Part 2: Farmers and Builders, 5000 to 500 BCE
Chapter 3
The Great River Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States
Growing Communities, Divergent Cultures
- Intensified Settlement and Its Effects
The Ecology of Civilization
The Great Floodplains
- The Ecology of Egypt
- Shifting Rivers of the Indus Valley
- Fierce Nature in Early Mesopotamia
- The Good Earth of Early China
Configurations of Society
- Patterns of Settlement and Labor
- Politics
- Statecraft in Mesopotamia
- The First Documented Chinese State
- Ruling Harappan World
- The Politics of Expansion
- Literate Culture
In Perspective: What Made the Great River Valleys Different?
Chapter 4
A Succession of Civilizations: Ambition and Instability
The Case of the Hittite Kingdom
- The Importance of Trade
- Hittite Society and Politics
- Fragility and Fall: The End of the Hatti
Instability and Collapse in the Aegean
- Cretan Civilization
- Mycenean Civilization
A General Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean World?
- The Egyptian Experience
- The Roots of Instability
The Extinction of Harappan Civilization
- The Evidence of the Rig Veda
- The Environment of Stress
Conflict on the Yellow River
- The Rise of the Zhou
- The Zhou Political System
State-Building in the Americas
- Andean Examples
- Developments in Mesoamerica
Assessing the Damage
- The Survival of Egypt
In Perspective: The Fatal Flaws
Ch
Date de parution : 02-2009
Ouvrage de 576 p.
22.9x27.3 cm