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Loading... What Makes Civilization?: The Ancient Near East and the Future of the Westby David Wengrow
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is quite an interesting but very hybrid book. Wengrow seems to be trying to refute Samuel Huntington's thesis on the clash of civilizations. The author is particularly opposed to the very static interpretation that Huntington gave to the concept of civilization, namely as if these were more or less separate containers. He is certainly not the only or the first one to give this justified criticism. The problem is that Wengrow then goes on to deal with very different aspects of ancient Near Eastern history, with very different themes and angles of view. His intent is to show how civilizations are constantly changing and also interacting with each other. He certainly regularly brings up interesting things, but you can not say that he convincingly makes his point. So mixed feelings. More about that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4599372837 ( ) no reviews | add a review
In What Makes Civilization?, archaeologist David Wengrow provides a vivid new account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (today's Iraq). These two regions, where many foundations of modern life were laid, are usually treated in isolation. Now, they are brought together within a unified history of how people first created cities, kingdoms, and monumental temples to the gods. But civilization, as Wengrow shows, is not only about such grand monuments. Just as importantly, it is also about the ordinary but fundamental practices of everyday life that we might take for g No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)932.01History and Geography Ancient World Ancient Egypt to 640 Early history to 332 BCLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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