What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West

by Wengrow, David

• ISBN13: 9780192805805
• ISBN10: 0192805800
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the story of Ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt: the 'birthplace of civilization', where the foundations of our own societies were laid, including everything from farming, writing, and the birth of cities to familiar ways of cooking food and keeping our homes and bodies clean. But why have these ancient cultures, where so many features of modern life originated, come to symbolize the remote and the exotic? And are the sacrifices we now make in the name of 'our' civilization really so different from those once made by the peoples of Mesopotamia and Egypt on the altars of the gods? Book jacket.

Author Biography

David Wengrow is Reader in Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations	p. VIII
Chronology Chart	p. XII
Preface and Acknowledgements	p. XIII
Introduction: A Clash of Civilizations?	p. 1
The Cauldron of Civilization	p. 17
Camouflaged Borrowings	p. 19
On the Trail of Blue-Haired Gods	p. 32
Neolithic Worlds	p. 39
The (First) Global Village	p. 54
Origin of Cities	p. 66
From the Ganges to the Danube: The Bronze Age	p. 88
Cosmology and Commerce	p. 109
The Labours of Kingship	p. 125
Forgetting the Old Regime	p. 151
Enlightenment from a Dark Source	p. 153
Ruined Regimes: Egypt at the Revolution	p. 163
Conclusion: What Makes Civilization?	p. 174
Further Reading	p. 177
Picture Acknowledgements	p. 209
Index	p. 211
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.