Promotional Information

Like Simon Schama's sweeping history of the British Isles, this is history on a grand scale 'A big and important book - an ambitious and original and stimulating study' Scotsman 'An exceptional book - what an extraordinary challenge Mithen has tackled with panache. This is a wonderful book that students, specialists or anyone else with curiosity about our early history can enjoy' New Scientist 'In After the Ice, [Steven Mithen] has done for the world what is hinted at in the poetry of one garden...the lucidity of Mithen's thought and prose will inform the professional and illuminate the general reader. After the Ice is that rare event: the right book at the right time' Alan Garner, The Times '[A] brilliant idea...[told with] Mithen's...characteristic virtues: immense erudition, lightly worn; mastery of vast material, wielded with impressive deftness. For clarity of exposition, fluency of language, vividness of imagination, he is unrivalled in his field' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Literary Review 'Anyone who reads it will find fresh information and new insights...This is an important book and succeeds in writing about the prehistoric past in a new way' Colin Renfrew, TLS

About the Author

Steven Mithen is Professor of Early Prehistory and head of the School of Human and environmental Sciences at Reading University. Author of numerous books and articles, he has also consulted and appeared on TV and radio programmes about prehistory around the world.

Reviews

This massive and clever book opens modern scholarship about the distant past to nonspecialists. Buyers of this book will get their money's worth. It comes with a generous supply of maps and pictures of artifacts and digs, some of which are in color...Erudite and also quirky, Mithen summarizes the work of contemporary archaeologists, often by recounting his own visits to archaeological sites and drawing on insights from recent research on paleoclimates and human genetics...This impressive book stands out as the new standard work.--David M. Fahey "The Historian "