by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
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by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
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by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
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by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
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by Christopher Lloyd
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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
Fernandez-Armesto follows his acclaimed Millennium with an experimental work of masterful breadth and insight. He questions traditional conceptions of civilization via a radical assessment on the impact of environment, examining cultures by environmental category rather than period or society. Civilization is seen to create its own habitat, defining itself by its distance from the unmodified natural environment but, as the author seeks to demonstrate, environmental factors and frontiers are critical in the development of world history. The author creates revealing juxtapositions within and between societies that adapt on the margins, beset by ice or sand; those on the wide grasslands, in dense jungle or post-glacial forest, on the banks of alluvial rivers, at dizzying altitude or clinging to the coast. This structure enables illuminating comparisons to be made between peoples divorced in time and space but related in the environmental challenges they face. It is a firm rejection of the grand and exclusive idea of Western Civilization. The obstacle of geography is often the primary reason for the absence of more advanced human exploitation of the environment but there also is the idea that those who understand nature best refrain from trying to change it. Crammed with thought-provoking ideas, illuminating anecdotes and snatches of global history, anthropology and biography, this is an inspiring book that operates with charming humanity on the grandest scale imaginable. (Kirkus UK)
See all Product Description
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
Fernandez-Armesto follows his acclaimed Millennium with an experimental work of masterful breadth and insight. He questions traditional conceptions of civilization via a radical assessment on the impact of environment, examining cultures by environmental category rather than period or society. Civilization is seen to create its own habitat, defining itself by its distance from the unmodified natural environment but, as the author seeks to demonstrate, environmental factors and frontiers are critical in the development of world history. The author creates revealing juxtapositions within and between societies that adapt on the margins, beset by ice or sand; those on the wide grasslands, in dense jungle or post-glacial forest, on the banks of alluvial rivers, at dizzying altitude or clinging to the coast. This structure enables illuminating comparisons to be made between peoples divorced in time and space but related in the environmental challenges they face. It is a firm rejection of the grand and exclusive idea of Western Civilization. The obstacle of geography is often the primary reason for the absence of more advanced human exploitation of the environment but there also is the idea that those who understand nature best refrain from trying to change it. Crammed with thought-provoking ideas, illuminating anecdotes and snatches of global history, anthropology and biography, this is an inspiring book that operates with charming humanity on the grandest scale imaginable. (Kirkus UK)
See all Product Description
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