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What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West

Renowned archaeologist David Wengrow creates here a vivid new account of the "birth of civilization" in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, bringing together within a unified history the first two nations where people created cities, kingdoms, and monumental temples to the gods. But civilization, Wengrow argues, is not exclusively about large-scale settlements and endeavors. Just as important are the ordinary but fundamental practices of everyday life, such as cooking, running a home, and cleaning the body. Tracing the development of such practices, from prehistoric times to the age of the pyramids, Wengrow reveals unsuspected connections between distant regions and provides new insights into the workings of societies we have come to regard as remote from our own. The book obliges us to recognize that civilizations are not formed in isolation, but through the mixing and borrowing of culture between different societies. It concludes by drawing telling parallels between the ancient Near East and more contemporary attempts to reshape the world according to an ideal image.

CONTENTS:

Chronology chart

Introduction: A Clash of Civilizations?

PART I The Cauldron of Civilization

Camouflaged Borrowings

On the Trail of Blue-Haired Gods

Neolithic Worlds

The (First) Global Village

Origin of Cities

From the Ganges to the Danube: the Bronze Age

Cosmology and Commerce

The Labours of Kingship

PART II Forgetting the Old Regime

Enlightenment from a Dark Source

Ruined Regimes: Egypt at the Revolution

Conclusion: What Makes Civilization?

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 237
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780192805805
  • Genres
  • history, archaeology, anthropology
  • Release date
  • 2010