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(as of Feb 10, 2025 14:32:42 UTC – Details)
Why did the first civilizations emerge when and where they did? How did Islam become a unifying force in the world of its birth? What enabled the West to project its goods and power around the world from the fifteenth century on? Why was agriculture invented seven times and the steam engine just once?
World-historical questions such as these, the subjects of major works by Jared Diamond, David Landes, and others, are now of great moment as global frictions increase. In a spirited and original contribution to this quickening discussion, two renowned historians, father and son, explore the webs that have drawn humans together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition, since earliest times. Whether small or large, loose or dense, these webs have provided the medium for the movement of ideas, goods, power, and money within and across cultures, societies, and nations. From the thin, localized webs that characterized agricultural communities twelve thousand years ago, through the denser, more interactive metropolitan webs that surrounded ancient Sumer, Athens, and Timbuktu, to the electrified global web that today envelops virtually the entire world in a maelstrom of cooperation and competition, J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill show human webs to be a key component of world history and a revealing framework of analysis. Avoiding any determinism, environmental or cultural, the McNeills give us a synthesizing picture of the big patterns of world history in a rich, open-ended, concise account.
ASIN : 0393925684
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (December 15, 2003)
Language : English
Paperback : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780393925685
ISBN-13 : 978-0393925685
Item Weight : 1.16 pounds
Dimensions : 6.1 x 1 x 9.3 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book an excellent summary of human history. They describe it as a great read that explores the beginnings of civilization. The book is easy to use and remember, with snapshots of the world during each time block.
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