Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Civilizations (eBook, ePUB)

Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In Civilizations, Felipe Fernández-Armesto once again proves himself a brilliantly original historian, capable of large-minded and comprehensive works; here he redefines the subject that has fascinated historians from Thucydides to Gibbon to Spengler to Fernand Braudel: the nature of civilization.

To Fernández-Armesto, a civilization is "civilized in direct proportion to its distance, its difference from the unmodified natural environment"...by its taming and warping of climate, geography, and ecology. The same impersonal forces that put an ocean between Africa and India, a river delta in Mesopotamia, or a 2,000-mile-long mountain range in South America have created the mold from which humanity has fashioned its own wildly differing cultures. In a grand tradition that is certain to evoke comparisons to the great historical taxonomies, each chapter of Civilizations connects the world of the ecologist and geographer to a panorama of cultural history. In Civilizations, the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not merely a Christian allegory, but a testament to the thousand-year-long deforestation of the trees that once covered 90 percent of the European mainland. The Indian Ocean has served as the world's greatest trading highway for millennia not merely because of cultural imperatives, but because the regular monsoon winds blow one way in the summer and the other in the winter.

In the words of the author, "Unlike previous attempts to write the comparative history of civilizations, it is arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period, or society by society." Thus, seventeen distinct habitats serve as jumping-off points for a series of brilliant set-piece comparisons; thus, tundra civilizations from Ice Age Europe are linked with the Inuit of the Pacific Northwest; and the Mississippi mound-builders and the deforesters of eleventh-century Europe are both understood as civilizations built on woodlands. Here, of course, are the familiar riverine civilizations of Mesopotamia and China, of the Indus and the Nile; but also highland civilizations from the Inca to New Guinea; island cultures from Minoan Crete to Polynesia to Renaissance Venice; maritime civilizations of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea...even the Bushmen of Southern Africa are seen through a lens provided by the desert civilizations of Chaco Canyon.

More, here are fascinating stories, brilliantly told -- of the voyages of Chinese admiral Chen Ho and Portuguese commodore Vasco da Gama, of the Great Khan and the Great Zimbabwe. Here are Hesiod's tract on maritime trade in the early Aegean and the most up-to-date genetics of seed crops. Erudite, wide-ranging, a work of dazzling scholarship written with extraordinary flair, Civilizations is a remarkable achievement...a tour de force by a brilliant scholar.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon + Schuster LLC
• Seitenzahl: 560
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. September 2001
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780743216500
• Artikelnr.: 37835586

Autorenporträt

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is a Professorial Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of the Modern History Faculty at Oxford University. He is the author of twelve books, including Millennium and Truth: A History.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents
Preface
Introduction: THE ITCH TO CIVILIZE
Civilizations and Civilization
The Civilizing Ingredient
The Glutinous Environment
The Mask and Apollo: Recent Definitions and Approaches
Reaching Between Civilizations -- and Reaching for the Unity of
Civilization
Process and Progress
The Checklist of Civilization
Back to Nature: Array by Environment
Two Cheers for Civilization
PART ONE: THE WASTE LAND
Desert, Tundra, Ice
Chapter One: THE HELM OF ICE
ICE WORLDS AND TUNDRA AS HUMAN HABITATS
The Ice Age in Europe -- Northern Scandinavia -- Asiatic Tundra -- Arctic
America -- Greenland
Beyond the Gates of Gog: The Savage North
Followers of the Ice
The Tamers of Reindeer
Companions of the Seal Bladders: Deference to Nature in Arctic America
Better Than Civilization: The Inuit in Competition with Europeans
Chapter Two: THE DEATH OF EARTH
ADAPTATION AND COUNTERADAPTATION IN DESERTS OF SAND
The North American Southwest -- Northern Peru -- the Sahara -- the Gobi --
the Kalahari
Learning from Hohokam: How to Build Civilization in the Desert
The Lakes of Worms: The Limits of Civilization in the Sahara
Lands of Unrest: Desert Highways Between Civilizations
Spirits of the Slippery Hills: Bushmen and Civilization
PART TWO: LEAVES OF GRASS
Barely Cultivable Grasslands
Chapter Three: THE SWEEPINGS OF THE WIND
PRAIRIE AND GRASSY SAVANNA
The Great Plains -- the African Savanna -- the Sahel
The Intractable Grasslands
The Architects of the Savanna
Imperialists of the Sahel
Chapter Four: THE HIGHWAY OF CIVILIZATIONS
THE EURASIAN STEPPE
The Wastes of Gog
A Confucian Contemplates the Wild
The Making of Mongol Imperialism
The Mongol Roads: Causeways of Civilization
PART THREE: UNDER THE RAIN
Civilization in Tropical Lowlands and Postglacial Forests
Chapter Five: THE WILD WOODS
POSTGLACIAL AND TEMPERATE WOODLAND
Cases of Deforestation -- the American Bottom -- North American Temperate
Forests -- Europe
The Fear of Trees: Learning to Clear the Forests
The Great Wet: Early Civilizations of the North American Woodlands
The Longhouse of Elm: Civilization by the Evergreen Frontier
Riding the Lumber Raft: Europe After the Forest
The Retreat of the Trees: From Forests to Cities in Twelfth-Century Europe
f0 Chapter Six: HEARTS OF DARKNESS
TROPICAL LOWLANDS
Frederik Hendrik Island -- the Olmec Heartland -- Low Amazonia -- the
Lowland Maya Lands -- the Valleys of the Khmer -- Benin City
The Habitable Hell: Cultivating the Swamp
Amazon Lands: The Challenge of the Rain Forest
The Tongue in the Stones: The Lowland Maya
The Beloved of the Snake: Khmer Civilization on the Mekong
The City of Death: Benin
PART FOUR: THE SHINING FIELDS OF MUD
Alluvial Soils in Drying Climates
Chapter Seven: THE LONE AND LEVEL SANDS
MISLEADING CASES IN THE NEAR EAST
The Çarsamba floodplain -- the Jordan Valley -- Sumer and Egypt
The Yielding Soil: Early Intensifiers of Agriculture
The Garden of the Lord: Alluvial Archetypes
Back from Diffusion: The Great River Valleys
From Sumer to Babylon
Out of the Underworld: The "Gift of the Nile"
Chapter Eight: OF SHOES AND RICE
TRANSCENDING ENVIRONMENTS OF ORIGIN IN CHINA AND INDIA
The Indus, Yellow, and Yangtze Rivers
Seals in the Sand: Lost Cities of the Indus and the Origins of India
Millet and Rice, River and River: The Making of China
The Checklist of Shang Civilization
The Phoenix of the East: The Survival of China
Expansion Without Mutation: The Chinese Grossraum
PART FIVE: THE MIRRORS OF SKY
Civilizing Highlands
Chapter Nine: THE GARDENS OF THE CLOUDS
The Highland Civilizations of the New World
Mesoamerica and the Andes
Altitude and Isolation: Classifying Highland Civilizations
Ascent to Tiahuanaco: Predecessors of the Inca
Places for the Gods: The Context of the Aztecs
Contrasting Worlds: The Aztecs and Inca Juxtaposed
The Vengeance of the Tribute-Bearers: Environment and Empire
Chapter Ten: THE CLIMB TO PARADISE
THE HIGHLAND CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD
New Guinea -- Zimbabwe -- Ethiopia -- Iran -- Tibet
The Last El Dorado
The African Predicament
The Mountains of Rasselas: Civilization in Ethiopia
High Roads of Civilization: Overlooking Asian Trade Routes
Looking Down from Tibet
PART SIX: THE WATER MARGINS
Civilizations Shaped by the Sea
Chapter Eleven: THE ALLOTMENTS OF THE GODS
SMALL-ISLAND CIVILIZATIONS
The "South Seas" -- Hawaii and Easter Island -- the Aleutians -- the
Maldives -- Malta -- Minoan Crete -- Venice
The Tangle of Isles: Polynesian Navigation
Surviving Isolation: Hawaii and Easter Island
The Wind's Nest: The Islands of the Aleut
Ports of Call: From the Maldives to Malta
The Wreck of Paradise: Minoan Crete
The Creature of the Lagoon: Venice as a Small-Island Civilization
Chapter Twelve: THE VIEW FROM THE SHORE
THE NATURE OF SEABOARD CIVILIZATIONS
The Oran laut -- Phoenicia and Scandinavia -- the Maritime Netherlands
The Sea People: Adapting to the Waves
The Narrow Shores: Phoenicia and Scandinavia
The Atlantic Edge
The Frustrations of Rimland: The Early Phase
"An Equilibrium of Mud and Water": Coaxing Civilization from the Shoals
Beyond the Beach: Identifying Seaboard Civilizations
Chapter Thirteen: CHASING THE MONSOON
SEABOARD CIVILIZATIONS OF MARITIME ASIA
Japan -- Maritime Arabia -- Southeast Asia -- Coromandel and Gujarat --
Fukien
Riders of the Typhoon: Maritime Japan
Caravans of the Monsoon: The Arabs and Their Seas
The Ring of the Snake: The Seas of Southeast Asia
The Seas of Milk and Butter: Maritime India
China's Frontier to the Sea: Fukien
Chapter Fourteen: THE TRADITION OF ULYSSES
THE GREEK AND ROMAN SEABOARDS
Boeotia -- the Greeks Overseas -- Athens -- the Aegean and Ionian Seas --
Rome -- the Roman Empire -- the Renaissances and Their Settings
The Plow and the Prow: A Conversation with Hesiod
The Pursuit of Galatea: Greece Takes to the Sea
The Claim of Poseidon: Athens and the Sea
A Hellenic Cruise: Five Wonders of Antiquity
Around the Middle Sea: Ancient Rome as a Seaboard Civilization
The Reach of the Classics: The Global Spread of the Greek and Roman
Legacies
PART SEVEN: BREAKING THE WAVES
The Domestication of the Oceans
Chapter Fifteen: ALMOST THE LAST ENVIRONMENT
THE RISE OF OCEANIC CIVILIZATIONS
From the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic -- from the Atlantic to the Indian
Ocean
The Muslim Lake
The Precocity of the Indian Ocean
From the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic: The Shadow of Vasco da Gama
The Round Trip of Vasco da Gama
Chapter Sixteen: REFLOATING ATLANTIS
THE MAKING OF ATLANTIC CIVILIZATION
Cultural Transmission from Europe to America and Back
The Origins of the European Atlantic
The Technological Strand
The Power of Culture
The Tyranny of the Timing
Atlantic Civilization in Black and White: The Imperial Phase
The World the Slaves Made
Chapter Seventeen: THE ATLANTIC AND AFTER
ATLANTIC SUPREMACY AND THE GLOBAL OUTLOOK
From the Atlantic to the Pacific -- from the Pacific to the World
Crises and Renewals of Atlantic Civilization
The Limits and Limitations of Western Civilization
Next Stop after the Atlantic
The Revenge of Nature
The Self-Threatened Menace
The Last Ocean
Epilogue: In Derek Jarman's Garden
Notes
Index