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
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.
"After the Ice" offers a fascinating whirlwind tour of an
underappreciated segment of human history...The prose is lively and
evocative as Mithen unfolds a compelling story...The cumulative
effect of this book should be a profound new appreciation of a
largely unknown and crucially important period of our past. If you
want to find out what you don't know about the grand sweep of human
history, there is not a better place to start.--Douglas K.
Charles"American Scientist" (05/01/2005)
By the end of this rich and multilayered book, I was dazzled and
hungry for more. Mithen has succeeded where other archaeologists
have failed: He transports the reader back into the past, showing
evocatively how humans adapted to 15,000 years worth of
environmental change.--Nina Jablonski"Discover" (03/01/2005)
Mithen did a huge amount of research to produce this curiously
encyclopedic work. The book is empirically authoritative but
quirkily postmodern...[A] truly provocative and ambitious
work..."After the Ice" is a book that should be read and then
exasperatingly argued about...And it does evoke the real excitement
of doing Stone Age archaeology (from the digging to the debating
the meaning of the finds): the passion to learn that has driven so
many prehistorians and dreamers.--Lawrence Guy Straus"Science"
(02/27/2004)
The author successfully achieved his goal of presenting a great
deal of information about a pivotal point in our history in a
thorough and easily digestible manner...This successful compilation
of human history from 20,000-5,000 BC should not be overlooked as a
key reference and welcome addition to any library of an interested
novice, undergraduate student of prehistory, or seasoned
archaeologist looking for a well written synthesis.--John D.
Rissetto "Paleoanthropology "
The resulting floods, spread of forests and retreat of the deserts
set up the planet we know today. Mithen's exhaustive explanation of
how human beings began living in small, mobile groups and then
permanent villages and the resultant creation of civilisation is a
big tale that's worth staying with.--Brian Hennigan"Glasgow Herald"
(06/05/2004)
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 "
Using an unorthodox narrative device, Mithen explores why, how, and
where farming displaced hunting and gathering. Mithen conjures John
Lubbock, an English author of a once-popular 1865 history of the
Stone Age, and sends him back in time to visit dozens of excavation
sites around the world as they appeared when inhabited. Lubbock's
transcontinental perambulations permit Mithen (a practicing
archaeologist who describes his digs in Scotland) to underscore one
causal factor in the agricultural revolution: the fluctuations of
climate at the end of the last Ice Age. Weather, sea level, and
zones of plant and animal life changed dramatically in the 15,000
years of Lubbock's walkabout, and Mithen explains how environmental
volatility is scientifically known as he sketches Lubbock observing
the various 'living' human communities that have been uncovered. A
successful marriage of fact and imagination.--Gilbert
Taylor"Booklist" (09/10/2004)
humans adapted to 15,000 years worth of environmental change.
learn that has driven so many prehistorians and dreamers.
paleoclimates and human genetics...This impressive book stands out
as the new standard work.
the warming world as it emerged from the last ice age. In the
process, he lends a you-are-there immediacy to an era in which
humans invented farming, settled in towns, and created civilization
as we know it.
walkabout, and Mithen explains how environmental volatility is
scientifically known as he sketches Lubbock observing the various
'living' human communities that have been uncovered. A successful
marriage of fact and imagination.
warming could provide clues to the effects of climate changes going
on today.
20,000-5,000 BC should not be overlooked as a key reference and
welcome addition to any library of an interested novice,
undergraduate student of prehistory, or seasoned archaeologist
looking for a well written synthesis.
In an ambitious undertaking, archaeologist Mithen describes 15,000
years of ancient history from 20,000 to 5,000 B.C....Mithen
explores how studying the abrupt transition between the ice age and
a period of global warming could provide clues to the effects of
climate changes going on today.
With the help of a fictional guide dubbed John Lubbock, modeled
after a Victorian naturalist who wrote a popular book called
"Prehistoric Times," Mithen embarks on a vivid tour of the warming
world as it emerged from the last ice age. In the process, he lends
a you-are-there immediacy to an era in which humans invented
farming, settled in towns, and created civilization as we know it.
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
