- Paperback: 656 pages
- Publisher: Pan Books; New edition edition (12 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330487981
- ISBN-13: 978-0330487986
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 12.9 x 4.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 516,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Amazon.co.uk Review
It is, perhaps, in the end, too long. When the discussion turns to the recent past and a speculative future, its course has been run. However, for the subject it is comparatively terse (Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History ran to 12 toe-stubbing volumes), and the preceding 500 pages have blown by with the heady gusto of a prevailing wind, leaving the dedicated reader short of breath. Felipe Fern´ndez-Armesto is provocative, naughty, and deeply intelligent. He enjoys language in a way few modern novelists do, let alone historians, and his panoramic sweep of the world's civilizations is a proud and preening gesture, through which he rejects, as Norbert Elias did, civilization as a self-referential western concept, and embraces a multi-civilizational world, free of a linear interpretation of time. His aim is to return humankind to its "natural" context, from which for much of the previous few centuries he has, at least in western culture, expended considerable energy extricating itself. Civilizations, resolutely in the plural, are wrought, he contends, through a systematic refashioning of nature, with occasional conditional deferments. Whether through mutual contact or exclusivity, on the frozen tundra, desert sandscapes, highlands, lowlands, grasslands or fertile alluvial plains, and with timber, mud, stone or metal, human beings have consistently come together and shaped their communities accordingly, from the Phoenicians, Aztecs and Romans to the (now-extinct) bird-eating population of the Hebridean island of Hirta. It's all about food, of course, as the Greek empire's growth from the humble olive tree illustrates, but also wind and oceans, migration and colonialism, and while he speculates that the future might lie with a Pacific culture succeeding its Atlantic equivalent, both are still fledglings compared to the Indian Ocean's role in shaping history. The author of Millennium, Fern´ndez-Armesto enlivens his voluble anthropology with empirical tales of, and from, countless travellers, while almost nonchalantly lacing his whirlwind polemic with exquisite literary reference as his appraising lens zooms in and out like a hovering hawk. He calls it an "experimental work", and "written in something like a frenzy". That may be, but it's also daring, richly allusive, and maddeningly thrilling. --David Vincent
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Fernandez-Armesto is a superb storyteller, with a barrel-full of anecdotes and a language as finely textured as any novelist's." Independent on Sunday * "This is a contentious, provocative work, full of utterly original and sometimes perverse perspectives." - Timothy Mo, The Independent * "He accosts you, proposes an interesting subject, and then extends it at enormous length... This is all good fun, and highly readable." - Richard Gott, Literary Review * "Witty...sharply original." Neal Ascherson, The Observer
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Around the world and through the ages, "Civilizations" takes the reader on a journey of discovery. Exotic lands, inhospitable climates and tantalising glimpses of forgotten cultures are all here.
The author has taken the approach of classifying civilisations not by their technological prowess or social structure, but by the geography in which they sustain themselves. Thus, chapters cover icy wastes, grassland, jungle, desert, etc,.
I was tempted to read this book by the promise of historical anecdotes and a wider coverage of human civilisation than most authors offer. Although Egypt, Greece and China have their place in this book, the reader is also allowed to stay for a while among the Mongol horde, voyage with the pioneering navigators of Polynesia and shiver in the mountains of Tibet.
Emphasis is placed on tradelinks and resources, but the author is quite happy to allow the figures of history to emerge from the landscape and make their presence known. There are quotes and extracts, as well as observations about the reasons for these expressions.
The prose is quite dry in places, yet in others it is as if you have the whole scene made real in front of you. When I read of the horrendous conditions of Frederik Hendrik Island, and the curious way in which its inhabitants survived there, I could feel my skin crawl and my boots fill with ooze, even as I sat on the bus into work.
Considering the great number of pages and the detail on each of them, I decided even before opening the book that it would be best read by selecting the most enigmatic culture and working my way down to the most familiar. I dip in, read some fascinating passage or enthralling chapter, and wait another day to read the next.
Suffice to say, I haven't finished the book yet, but this is definitely a companion for life - If only for the sheer variety of cultures on offer. I didn't fully appreciate until now how diverse civilisation could be. Not just that such and such a thing might be possible, but that it had already happened and happened sucessfully - Despite close-minded historians and paranoid nations belittling the achievements of lands they could claim no cultural connection with. For this, we need look no further than Great Zimbabwe or the nation of Meroe to see that mighty civilisations have been denied their rightful place in world history simply because archaeologists of the West refused to acknowledge that black Africans might build empires to rival those of Egypt or Rome.
This book can open up a whole new world. What's surprising is that it's the world we already live in.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is such an amazingly readable book. It looks dauntingly long, but once you're into it you're hooked. I read it over a weekend. Fernandez-Armesto can write like a novelist, but also is a complete polymath in his approach. It's so much more than straight linear history. It's exciting, mind-opening stuff. It's so unusual to finish a book feeling genuinely excited by the information and ideas contained within it. I can't recommend it too highly.
Format:Hardcover
For those of you, who, like me, have delved into the canon of works on civilisations, this may be a welcome breeze of fresh air. F-A gives a refreshed definition on the difficult and timeless question of what actually is civilisation. A whirlwind account, in the prose of a professional poet, through various states, past and present, all with respect to their environment. Those who have read Jared Diamond's excellent 'Guns, Germs and Steel' will find this a useful corollory. This book encapsulates the sheer diversity and magesty of the world's people, without the stagnation caused by categorization as so often found in these books.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Information overload
A dazzling amount of information, but without the structure and analytical undercurrent that make this kind of books memorable. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2009 by Frederic J. Pont
Enjoyable and well written BUT
"Civilizations is a radical cultural history of mankinds fragile relationship with nature (...) Felipe Fernandez-Armesto closely examines the world's societies, from the maritime... Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2003 by Cyph
Promises much, delivers little
From the blurb you'd expect a radical "revaluation of values" but instead we get a strange kind of package tour around world history taking in all the usual highlights eg... Read more
Published on 11 Nov 2001
Top Notch
This book is excellent. Friendly and charming...history is offered to you rather than thrust at you.
Published on 6 Nov 2001 by ashward@email.com
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