The Dawn of Everything

The Dawn of Everything PDF Author: David Graeber
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

The Dawn of Everything

The Dawn of Everything PDF Author: David Graeber
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

Atlantic History

Atlantic History PDF Author: Bernard Bailyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674020405
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Atlantic history is a newly and rapidly developing field of historical study. Bringing together elements of early modern European, African, and American history--their common, comparative, and interactive aspects--Atlantic history embraces essentials of Western civilization, from the first contacts of Europe with the Western Hemisphere to the independence movements and the globalizing industrial revolution. In these probing essays, Bernard Bailyn explores the origins of the subject, its rapid development, and its impact on historical study. He first considers Atlantic history as a subject of historical inquiry--how it evolved as a product of both the pressures of post-World War II politics and the internal forces of scholarship itself. He then outlines major themes in the subject over the three centuries following the European discoveries. The vast contribution of the African people to all regions of the West, the westward migration of Europeans, pan-Atlantic commerce and its role in developing economies, racial and ethnic relations, the spread of Enlightenment ideas--all are Atlantic phenomena. In examining both the historiographical and historical dimensions of this developing subject, Bailyn illuminates the dynamics of history as a discipline.

Atlantis

Atlantis PDF Author: Shirley Andrews
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1546224211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
You know of it through song and legend: the golden civilization of Atlantis, which sank into the cold depths of the sea ages ago. But few know the truth about Atlantisor the geological and metaphysical evidences that suggest it really existed. What have scholars unearthed of Atlantiss society and history? How about its mystical and religious beliefs, art and architecture, and its peoples knowledge of science and healing? Is it possible that the tremendous achievements of the Atlanteans were aided by extraterrestrial contact? Shirley Andrews uncovers the living legacy in Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization, a compelling new look at a legendary country once situated on the Atlantic Ridge. The author has traveled extensively to conduct her own comprehensive research, which she synthesizes with the work of hundreds of other Atlantis researchersclassical and modern scholars, scientists, and respected psychics like Edgar Cayce. Survivors of this fabled land have made their mark on cultures all over the world, and their descendants walk the earth today. Learn how the legacy of Atlantis can help us bring our own world into a new age of peace and enlightenment.

Atlantic History

Atlantic History PDF Author: Jack P. Greene
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199717710
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Atlantic history, with its emphasis on inter-regional developments that transcend national borders, has risen to prominence as a fruitful perspective through which to study the interconnections among Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa. These original essays present a comprehensive and incisive look at how Atlantic history has been interpreted across time and through a variety of lenses from the fifteenth through the early nineteenth century. Editors Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan have assembled a stellar cast of thirteen international scholars to discuss key areas of Atlantic history, including the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, African, and indigenous worlds, as well as the movement of ideas, peoples, and goods. Other contributors assess contemporary understandings of the ocean and present alternatives to the concept itself, juxtaposing Atlantic history with global, hemispheric, and Continental history.

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth PDF Author: Adam Frank
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393609022
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Winner of the 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science "A valuable perspective on the most important problem of our time." —Adam Becker, NPR Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity’s coming of age as we realize we might not be alone in this universe. Astrophysicist Adam Frank traces the question of alien life from the ancient Greeks to modern thinkers, and he demonstrates that recognizing the possibility of its existence might be the key to save us from climate change. With clarity and conviction, Light of the Stars asks the consequential question: What can the likely presence of life on other planets tell us about our own fate?

Work

Work PDF Author: James Suzman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525561773
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
"This book is a tour de force." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy, meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same. Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.

The Atlantic Civilization

The Atlantic Civilization PDF Author: Michael Kraus
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780758143488
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description


The Sea and Civilization

The Sea and Civilization PDF Author: Lincoln Paine
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101970359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 802

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Book Description
A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of the sea—revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world’s waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human. The Sea and Civilization is a mesmerizing, rhapsodic narrative of maritime enterprise, from the origins of long-distance migration to the great seafaring cultures of antiquity; from Song Dynasty human-powered paddle-boats to aircraft carriers and container ships. Lincoln Paine takes the reader on an intellectual adventure casting the world in a new light, in which the sea reigns supreme. Above all, Paine makes clear how the rise and fall of civilizations can be linked to the sea. An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea and Civilization is a stunning work of history.

A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820

A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 PDF Author: John K. Thornton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139536192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1088

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Book Description
A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 explores the idea that strong links exist in the histories of Africa, Europe and North and South America. John K. Thornton provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the Atlantic Basin before 1830 by describing political, social and cultural interactions between the continents' inhabitants. He traces the backgrounds of the populations on these three continental landmasses brought into contact by European navigation. Thornton then examines the political and social implications of the encounters, tracing the origins of a variety of Atlantic societies and showing how new ways of eating, drinking, speaking and worshipping developed in the newly created Atlantic World. This book uses close readings of original sources to produce new interpretations of its subject.

The History of Atlantis

The History of Atlantis PDF Author: Lewis Spence
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486427102
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The romantic legend of Atlantis has captured imaginations since Plato first told of a glorious island in the Atlantic that sank beneath the waves. Speculation has abounded ever since, and scientists who formerly dismissed the possibility that Atlantis ever existed were obliged to reconsider--partly because of the author of this book. Lewis Spence (1874-1955) wrote five books about Atlantis, and this one is considered his best. Spence sifted through a tremendous body of research in fields from mythology and comparative religion to geography, geology, and archeology. The result is the most authoritative study ever published on the history, geography, animal life, government, and religion of this fabled island.