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100+ Works 8,421 Members 136 Reviews 14 Favorited

About the Author

Brian Fagan is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A former Guggenheim fellow, he has written many internationally acclaimed, popular books about archaeology, including The Little Ice Age, The Great Warming, and The Lang Summer. He lives in Santa show more Barbara, California. show less
Disambiguation Notice:

The anthropology books and the sailing books were written by the same Brian Fagan.

Series

Works by Brian M. Fagan

The Adventure of Archaeology (1602) 335 copies
Ancient Civilizations (1997) 100 copies
Egypt of the Pharaohs (2001) 88 copies
New Treasures of the Past (1986) 58 copies
The Great Archaeologists (2014) 52 copies
Clash of Cultures (1984) 38 copies
The Aztecs (1984) 24 copies
Africa in the Iron Age: c.500 BC-1400 AD (1975) — Joint Author. — 20 copies
Prehistoric Times (1983) 11 copies
Snapshots of the Past (1995) 9 copies
Southern Africa (1966) 6 copies
Arkeolojinin Kısa Tarihi (2019) 3 copies
Bareboating (1985) 3 copies
África Austral 2 copies
Sulle sponde del Nilo (2006) 2 copies
The Journey From Eden (1990) 1 copy
Archaeology and You (2006) 1 copy

Associated Works

Mysteries of Mankind: Earth's Unexplained Landmarks (1992) — Contributor — 187 copies
The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (1995) — Contributor — 133 copies
Archaeology: The Essential Guide to Our Human Past (2017) — Foreword, some editions — 48 copies
Ancient America (1995) 31 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

This course deserves a high rating for the quality of the instructor, but it has some serious flaws which reduces my rating to (a perhaps generous) 3***.
  • It's roughly twenty years old and isn't really up-to-date on Neanderthals. More recent research contradicts the instructor's assertion that Home Sapiens Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens Sapiens could not interbreed. In fact, current DNA research indicates that all human races share some small percentage of Neanderthal genes (with the exception of sub-Saharan Africans, since Neanderthals developed outside of the African continent). Additionally, Neanderthals (despite this instructor's now-dated assertion) were in fact artistic and apparently had some form of spirituality.
  • The instructor's assertion (and granted, he's an archaeologist, not a linguist) that Indo-Aryan more likely developed in India rather than being imported to the subcontinent by migrants is, to say the least, a minority view – one that I tend to associate with the Hindutva movement.
  • His contrast between Brahmanism and Buddhism in India ignores the important role of folk religions, especially among pre-Aryan inhabitants of the subcontinent.
  • Although this isn't entirely a "talking head" video and there are some illustrations, there could have been more.
  • The close captioning is often sloppy, not coordinating well with the spoken word.
All told, 3***; and I'd recommend paging through the Great Courses library for more current versions of this topic.… (more)
 
Flagged
CurrerBell | 4 other reviews | Feb 10, 2024 |
True name should've been History of Plumbing and Irrigation. Of which 2/3 of the book is dedicated to ancient civilizations. Too conversationalist for a thesis, but too detailed, specific and wearisome for a general audience non-fiction. The book is an unlucky cross between the two genres. Thus they only readership cohort for this book is graduate students and some geeks of the topic.

***
Ah, found a book that resembles this one: www.goodreads.com/book/show/18497345-water-engineering-in-ancient-civilizations
Tellingly, it has virtually no readers. I for one was drawn to Elixir by Fagan's name. I wouldn't never have lifted "Water Engineering in Ancient Civilizations: 5,000 Years of History", it's Siamese twin...… (more)
 
Flagged
Den85 | 4 other reviews | Jan 3, 2024 |
Interesting, but not quite what I thought it would be. Wouldn’t recommend. Oct 2010
 
Flagged
BBrookes | 5 other reviews | Dec 12, 2023 |

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Statistics

Works
100
Also by
5
Members
8,421
Popularity
#2,861
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
136
ISBNs
473
Languages
16
Favorited
14

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