A Brief History of the Human Race |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Holland History > Item 412
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A Brief History of the Human Race
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by Michael A. Cook
Sales Rank: 591370
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List Price: $15.95
$11.96
At Amazon
on 11-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 385 pages
Published by: W. W. Norton & Company February 28, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0393326454
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0393326451
Book Dimensions:
8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 13.6 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Princeton University professor Cook, a specialist in Islamic history, ambitiously attempts to convey the general shape of human history over the last 10,000 years. As Cook makes clear from the outset, we're in the midst of a lucky spell regarding global climate, which has been mild over the last several millennia. Taking advantage of this "window of opportunity," humans began to do something revolutionary: farm. Cook emphasizes that farming was the beginning of civilization, and it all started in the Middle East. Cook's focus on the impact of environment and geography is clear in his chapter on Africa, "in which we can expect the history of the continent to be marked by a steep cultural gradient, with the advantage going to the north," where close contact with Eurasia and more suitable climate led to farming and the domestication of animals earlier than in the south. Cook's method is to first sketch an overview of a particular region's history, and then to analyze in depth a couple of its cultural developments. Thus, he offers us interesting explorations of Greek pottery, Chinese ancestor cults and marriage rites among Australian aborigines. Toward the end of his survey, Cook looks at the rise of industrialism in Britain and how it posed a challenge to the rest of the world. One highly relevant challenge to Western modernity that Cook emphasizes is Islamic fundamentalism. While Cook does an great job covering the main themes of world history, his narrative at times reads like a college survey course: lots of enticing information, but too sweeping. 15 maps, thirty illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Cook is more a provocative questioner of human history than a narrator of it. Intending to point out "to an alert reader" the salient contours of human society today and how they came to be that way, Cook brings commanding erudition to all corners of the world, extending from his expertise in Islamic history to explore China, India, Australia, the Americas, and Europe. As did Geoffrey Blainey in A Short History of the World (2002), Cook identifies the melting of the ice sheets as the key environmental event for humanity. But whereas Blainey proceeds in a political direction, Cook emphasizes the material and cultural side of the story, probing why, for example, agriculture, writing, or a social or religious practice arose in one locale rather than another. In this approach, Cook echoes Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (1997), a surprisingly popular explanation of how the West outdistanced the rest. Cook ought to capitalize on that same interest. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: A Brief History of the Human Race (Hardcover)
True to his book's title, historian Cook takes on a daunting project and manages to chart a flow of global human history over the last 10,000 years, since the start of our present era of benign climate, the Holocene, and the consequent advent of farming. Only with farming can people begin to put down roots, feed larger numbers, accumulate pottery, build cities, and construct - or steal- a system of writing to leave an account of themselves for posterity. Farming began in the Near East - Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) - the birthplace of civilization, as every schoolchild learns. Interestingly, and logically, as Cook shows, the last place civilization caught on in the Old World was Western Europe - its best soils being too heavy for the available plow. When a heavier plow was developed halfway through the first millennium, cities sprouted and armies reaped the benefits. In broad strokes (with accompanying broad maps) Cook credits geography, climate and natural resources for driving early advances. Cultural flow is more problematic - why did Greek culture spread while Egyptian did not? Or why did Buddhism wander to China while Hinduism stayed put in India? Cook raises many such tantalizing questions and explores what evidence there is, offering cogent theories of his own. And he shows how technological advances shaped larger movements - expensive bronze favoring elite rule, while cheap iron empowered the masses, for instance. But if farming made civilization possible, monotheism began to shape the world as we know it. Christianity made its way through the scattered Jewish diaspora of the Roman Empire and was, as a political expedient, finally adopted as the state religion by Constantine. It then became attractive to frontier peoples as a trapping of civilization. Islam (Cook's specialty) solved a political difficulty by uniting two Arab tribes in Arabia to form a state, which then had the power to coordinate a wave of conquest, which resulted in the largest empire ever. Cook organizes his book in four parts. He begins with an overview of prehistory and inevitable development and concludes with a question, "Toward One World?" which embraces the Islamic expansion, the European expansion and the modern world. Three-part chapters within each of these sections focus on broad geographical masses and the cultural developments within, then draw it all together by homing in on particular features: the complicated marriageability rules among the Australian Aranda, Chinese ancestor worship, caste and sexuality in Hinduism, Greek pottery and more. Much is left out; much is simplified. Naturally. And the most interesting bits are the story-like chapter conclusions. But Cook uses these to illustrate his broader points and to show the individual peculiarities of human cultures. His writing is lucid, often witty, and seldom dry. And he gives an extensive "further reading" list for each chapter. A fine, thought-provoking, well-organized and succinct history of the last 10,000 years.
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A Brief History of the Human Race
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Updated on 11-17-2008.
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