Civilizations

by Felipe Fernandez Armesto (Author), Felipe Fernandez Armesto (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.27

  A close examination of the world's societies, from the maritime civilizations of the Polynesians to the Dawada people of the Sahara. Rather than looking to the familiar spots of Rome and Paris, Fernadez-Armesto takes us to unfamiliar territories to redifine our understanding of what it is to be civilized. Filled with anecdotal historical tales, shrewd insights and engaging arguments, this book concludes that societies can be judged on how civilized they are by investigating their interaction with their own environment.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2000

  $3.27

  This enormous project is based on the premise that civilizations are the product of their environment. With that, Fernandez-Arnesto looks at cultures of the desert, the tundra and ice, then to the more obvious civilizations of alluvial flood plains, the highlands, maritime civilizations and finally civilizations of travel, migration and expansion. This is a work of massive cross referencing juxtaposing the maritime civilizations of Japan and Northern Africa or the mountain civilizations of New Guinea and Tibet. The effect is to suggest that civilization can happen anywhere - that no one environment is uniquely conducive, or that no one race or people are more productive than another.