Brian M. Fagan (1936–2025)

Read mainly for research purposes but the story is one that still resonates as this plundering of the Nile treasures began in earnest with Napoleon and continued pretty much unabated until after World War I. The Great Powers (England, France and gradually through the 19th century, Germany and the US) were motivated by a complex mix of greed and true fascination with and desire to understand the pharaonic period. Trying to understand the intersection of proving national superiority by show more increasing understanding of history while also collecting priceless loot is a little hard to wrap one's mind around, but nonetheless. England and France were engaged to a greater or lesser degree in competition with one another throughout this entire period. Fagan, in this updated version, focusses on the gradual shift from almost pure acquisition of the biggest and most fascinating treasures, to a gradual shift to respecting the sites,studying the smallest finds, digging with obsessive care, while honoring the people of the cultures you disturb and unearth in the name of increasing knowledgle. The men themselves, from 'the Great Belzoni' in the early 19th century to Howard Carter in the 20th are the giants of archaeology and one can watch the developments through their ever-evolving methods and approaches and purpose. Fagan does a solid job in outlining this evolution and giving us the characters, the details of each period, what was happening politically in Egypt itself. Informative and entertaining. This was a listen and the reader had some odd quirks and occasional bizarre pronunciations that I am fairly sure were neither standard English nor American (alas, this is the downside of listening, not easy to go back to remind oneself . . .) but he was bearable. **** show less

Brian Fagan put together his long professional experience as an archaeologist and anthropologist with his even longer private experience as a small-boat sailor to create this fascinating global overview of what we know about seafaring as it was practiced before the era of scientific navigation, at what motivated people to sail out of sight of land and at what tools and techniques they had available to them to be able to do it (reasonably) safely and repeatably.

He looks separately at the show more history of seafaring in Polynesia, in the Aegean, in the Indian Ocean, in Northern Europe, and on the West coast of North and Central America. What is immediately striking is how early in the development of human societies in all those regions there were communities that relied on trade with other communities, in some cases a very long way away, to supply themselves with certain essential commodities. Obsidian and, later, metals for making tools; important ritual objects like cowrie shells; even wood for building boats had to be imported in some parts of the world (notably the Arab peninsula). It's astonishing to realise that there was regular trade between Arabia, India and the East African coast long before the rise of Islam.

In the Pacific and the Indian Ocean predictable seasonal reversals in wind direction must have helped to make it possible to voyage into "the unknown" and know that you would be able to get home again, but in all parts of the world navigators seem to have relied on variations in the same basic techniques of ocean navigation — using stars to follow lines of latitude to known destinations; using wave patterns, clouds, and marine life as clues to the proximity of land.

Techniques of boat construction varied around the world, though: the invention of the outrigger meant that there was no urgent need for Polynesians to build anything more substantial than a canoe, whilst the Aleutian kayak was always the perfect hunting craft for northern waters, as long as there were sea-lion skins available to make it from. Elsewhere reeds, balsa wood, and eventually split planks were used, although planked construction on a large scale had to wait for the invention of the nail (there were limits to the size of hull that could be built with stitched planks).

A very interesting book, shaped by Fagan's ability to give us a clear digest of the mass of archaeological literature on the subject and season it with his own practical insights into what does and doesn't make sense from a seafarer's point of view. show less

I used to live in southwestern Colorado, only a few hours from Mesa Verde. It was during a trip to Mesa Verde, actually, that I first learned about Chaco Canyon, which is a few hours to the south. The NPS employee manning the Mesa Verde bookstore that day insisted that I just had to visit Chaco Canyon because it was amazing. And since I was kind of just meandering around for the next few days and didn't need to get back home for two more, I decided to do something crazy and deviate from my show more itinerary - and am I glad that I did!

Chaco Canyon is indeed amazing. To be honest, it's a bitch to get to, about twenty miles off of Route 550, and only four of those miles are paved. When I went the first time, the road was seriously just sand and washboard ruts (the last time I went, the NPS had just laid down some gravel, but I'm not sure how long that lasts). It took me nearly an hour to drive those sixteen miles, and I figured that I'd need at least a front-end alignment for my car and a serious massage for my newly-acquired aches and pains. But then you get the breathtaking view of Fajada Butte, and that's only the beginning.

All of the times I've gone to Chaco Canyon, it's been relatively quiet. It's not as well-known as Mesa Verde, and it's much less accessible. That translates into the ability to wander through the ruins with minimal human interaction, which is always a plus for me in these sites. I love to think and think and think some more, and I just can't do that when people are clamoring behind me trying to get the best selfie so they can post it on Instagram. And yes, Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace is beautiful and awe-inspiring, but I'd argue that Pueblo Bonito is just as beautiful and even more awe-inspiring. And at Chaco Canyon, you aren't kept separate from the ruins like you are in Mesa Verde, only allowed to approach in carefully guided and time-controlled ranger programs. Nope, you can spend all day in Pueblo Bonito if you want, or hike up to the Pueblo Alto complex and wander around for hours, or take a splendid backcountry hike to Peñasco Blanco and see pottery shards still littering the ground of that unexcavated great house, hundreds of years after the people who made those pieces of pottery left the area.

Chaco Canyon is magical.

Fagan tries to bring that magic to a general audience in this book. He discusses the various eras of Chaco Canyon, the people who built and inhabited the place, the possible connections with other communities, and why the people ultimately left the area. (In spite of what some sensationalist "stories" try to proclaim, the ancestral Puebloan people did not "vanish." They dispersed, moving to other settlements or founding their own in other locations. Their descendants still populate the Four Corners area and beyond.)

Fagan tends to repeat himself a lot, and the book skips around quite a bit, even though he tries to proceed in a linear way. The book also says that it presents various ideas about Chaco, which it technically does, although Fagan is quick to dismiss those he doesn't particularly agree with or those he sees as "unconventional" (which I am guessing is archaeologist-speak for "nutcase"). Fagan tends to favor the "conservative" ideas of Chaco as being more correct, which is really a shame, because I love to read about speculation and possibilities. He also agree s with Gwinn Vivian on EVERYTHING, apparently. I mean, I know that Vivian is one of the pillars of research when it comes to Chaco Canyon, but I there are others out there who also provide interesting and unique research (those are the "unconventional" types, I suppose).

The pictures are also OLD - which isn't necessarily bad, since Chaco has changed little in a hundred years (some of the pictures are from the 1930s), except for part of Pueblo Bonito being obliterated by the collapse of Threatening Rock, but some of them really don't do justice to the areas discussed. For example, the picture of Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace is taken so far away from Cliff Palace that if you don't know the geography of the area, you might have a hard time even locating Cliff Palace in the picture (it's the left-central top portion of the picture, FYI).

Still, this isn't a bad starting point for those interested in Chaco Canyon; I'd highly recommend those who plan on visiting the place to read up on it before going, because it's just so much more interesting than the few sentences on the signs in the park proper can possibly explain. show less

After the amazing warm period of the 13th century, climate change had a profound effect on human behavior and well-being. Brian Fagan takes us step by step through the cold, unsettled, rainy, dry, hot and otherwise completely unpredictable years of the Little Ice Age, when the subsistence farmers of Europe and elsewhere suffered repeated bad harvests and terrible privations. He is blunt, and after the description of life in the 1300s and 1400s, I was consumed with empathy for these people show more who had to live through such uncertain times.

Starting in the early 1300s, weather became increasingly destructive to farming, with repeated cold spells, drenching rains and unexpected droughts. Fagan takes us all the way through to the 1800s and the blistering Irish famine that pushed so many to emigrate or die. In between, he notes the persistent rain in the 14th and 15th centuries that turned farmlands and pasturelands to seas of mud and certainly contributed to the outcomes of battles (for instance, Agincourt) as well as privation. He notes calamity in the New World as well, as early settlers in North America fought to live through one of the coldest winters of the age, the Incan Empire and other indigenous societies were ruined by drought, volcanic eruptions blocked the sun, and the Thames froze solid.

And of course, he ends the age with our own interference in climate. This book, published in 2000, is cautious about laying all the global warming at our feet, citing other contributing possibilities. But his description of one possible outcome is literally chilling, as fresh water melt covers the north end of the Gulf Stream and shuts off the downwelling of that great warm river in the sea. Once we scorch the Earth, another Ice Age may come again. show less