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Author: Nicholas Hagger
Publisher: Iff Books
ISBN: 9781846940101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Nicholas Hagger presents an examination of the patterns of civilizations, providing a unique interpretation into their origin, rise and collapse, and how one civilization leads into the next.
Author: Nicholas Hagger
Publisher: Iff Books
ISBN: 9781846940101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Nicholas Hagger presents an examination of the patterns of civilizations, providing a unique interpretation into their origin, rise and collapse, and how one civilization leads into the next.
Author: Andrew Rimas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439110131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375
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Book Description
We are what we eat: this aphorism contains a profound truth about civilization, one that has played out on the world historical stage over many millennia of human endeavor. Using the colorful diaries of a sixteenth-century merchant as a narrative guide, Empires of Food vividly chronicles the fate of people and societies for the past twelve thousand years through the foods they grew, hunted, traded, and ate—and gives us fascinating, and devastating, insights into what to expect in years to come. In energetic prose, agricultural expert Evan D. G. Fraser and journalist Andrew Rimas tell gripping stories that capture the flavor of places as disparate as ancient Mesopotamia and imperial Britain, taking us from the first city in the once-thriving Fertile Crescent to today’s overworked breadbaskets and rice bowls in the United States and China, showing just what food has meant to humanity. Cities, culture, art, government, and religion are founded on the creation and exchange of food surpluses, complex societies built by shipping corn and wheat and rice up rivers and into the stewpots of history’s generations. But eventually, inevitably, the crops fail, the fields erode, or the temperature drops, and the center of power shifts. Cultures descend into dark ages of poverty, famine, and war. It happened at the end of the Roman Empire, when slave plantations overworked Europe’s and Egypt’s soil and drained its vigor. It happened to the Mayans, who abandoned their great cities during centuries of drought. It happened in the fourteenth century, when medieval societies crashed in famine and plague, and again in the nineteenth century, when catastrophic colonial schemes plunged half the world into a poverty from which it has never recovered. And today, even though we live in an age of astounding agricultural productivity and genetically modified crops, our food supplies are once again in peril. Empires of Food brilliantly recounts the history of cyclic consumption, but it is also the story of the future; of, for example, how a shrimp boat hauling up an empty net in the Mekong Delta could spark a riot in the Caribbean. It tells what happens when a culture or nation runs out of food—and shows us the face of the world turned hungry. The authors argue that neither local food movements nor free market economists will stave off the next crash, and they propose their own solutions. A fascinating, fresh history told through the prism of the dining table, Empires of Food offers a grand scope and a provocative analysis of the world today, indispensable in this time of global warming and food crises.
Author: Sir John Bagot Glubb
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780851581279
Category : Geopolitics
Languages : en
Pages : 46
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Book Description
Author: Eric H. Cline
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.
Author: David R. Montgomery
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933168
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.
Author: Ahmet Davutoğlu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000458520
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
Based on the author’s long experience in academic life and the public realm, especially in foreign policy, this book argues that a single categoric classification of cities is inadequate, and that cities have had different and varied impacts and positions throughout the history of civilization. The author examines how the formation, transformation, destruction or reestablishment of many civilizational cities reveals a clearer picture of the cornerstones of the course of human history. These cities, which play a decisive and pivotal role in the direction of the flow of history as well as providing us with a compass to guide our efforts to understand and interpret this flow, are conceptualized by the author as civilizations’ "pivot cities". This innovative book explores the role of great cities in political historical change, presenting an alternative view of these pivot cities from a culturalist perspective. Within this framework, the role played by pivot cities in the history of civilization may be considered under seven distinct headings: pioneering cities which founded civilizations; cities which were founded by civilizations; cities which were transplanted during the formation of civilizations; "ghost cities" which lost their importance through shifts in political power and civilizational transformation; "lost cities" which were destroyed by civilizations; cities on lines of geocultural/geoeconomic interaction; and cities which combine, transform or are transformed by different civilizations. The author’s concept of pivot cities explores the interplay between vital cities and civilizations, which bears on the future of globalization at a time of instability, as projected continuing de-Westernization becomes a theme in studies of global history. This book provides highly productive discussions relevant to the literature on city-civilization relationships and the historicity of pivot cities. Its clear language, rich content, deep and original perspective, interdisciplinary approach and rich bibliography will ensure that it appeals to students and scholars in a variety of disciplines, including cultural studies, political science, comparative urban studies, anthropology, history and civilizational studies.
Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141976969
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608
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Book Description
From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations. Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 'A grand sweep from a master storyteller of the human race' - Daily Mail 'Riveting, superb, terrifying' - Observer 'Gripping ... the book fulfils its huge ambition, and Diamond is the only man who could have written it' - Economis 'This book shines like all Diamond's work' - Sunday Times
Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596917806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
In this New York Times bestseller, Brian Fagan shows how climate transformed-and sometimes destroyed--human societies during the earth's last global warming phase. From the 10th to 15th centuries the earth experienced a rise in surface temperature that changed climate worldwide-a preview of today's global warming. In some areas, including much of Western Europe, longer summers brought bountiful crops and population growth that led to cultural flowering. In others, drought shook long-established societies, such as the Maya and the Indians of the American Southwest, whose monumental buildings were left deserted as elaborate social structures collapsed. Brian Fagan examines how subtle changes in the environment had far-reaching effects on human life, in a narrative that sweeps from the Arctic ice cap to the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. The lessons of history suggest we may be yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives today.
Author: Oswald Spengler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195066340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.
Author: Marty Gitlin
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1477789251
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
This enlightening book leads readers though the history of ancient China, up to and through its decline, including how power was centralized within the Zhou royal house and aristocratic families that ruled their individual territories. This resource explains the Spring and Autumn periods, as well as Confucius’s influence, and the positive and negative aspects of the Qin Dynasty. Readers will be captivated by the ebb and flow of rulers, the excitement of peasant revolts, and rebellions that ultimately resulted in the fall of ancient China.
