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Bezig met laden... Ancient Worlds: The Search for the Origins of Western Civilizationdoor Richard Miles
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  bookomaniac | Jan 21, 2022 |    ) ElentarriLT | Mar 24, 2020 | I have read individual books in the past about all these civilisations, and came to this wanting more information about Mesopotamia. This book presents a persuasive argument about how civilisations have built on previous attempts and how this process works. So as well as coming away with a greater knowledge of Mesopotamia, I also now far better understand why each of these civilisations came into existence and why they failed. By necessity in a book of this nature, much has to be omitted, but you are free to go and read about what interests you in greater detail. What it does is try to give you an overarching framework into which to fit the various "ancient worlds" and it does a very good job at this. (  )1  CarltonC | Dec 28, 2011 | geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta, awe-inspiring, monstrous ruins are scattered across the landscape - vast palaces, temples, fortresses, shattered statues of ancient gods, carvings praising the eternal power of long-forgotten dynasties.These ruins - the remainder of thousands of years of human civilization - are both inspirational in their grandeur, and terrible in that their once teeming centres of population were all ultimately destroyed and abandoned. In this major new book, Richard Miles recreates these extraordinary cities, ranging from the Euphrates to the Roman Empire, to understand the roots of human civilization. His challenge is to make us understand that the cities which define culture, religion and economic success and which are humanity's greatest invention, have always had a cruel edge to them, building systems that have provided both amazing opportunities and back-breaking hardship. Miles is above all fascinated by the compromises that make the city work - the mixture of coercion and desire, ceremony and justice, the great public and private spaces created and recreated across the ancient world that defined the focus and meaning of human civilization. This exhilarating, beautifully illustrated book is both a pleasure to read and a challenge to us all to think about our past - and about the present. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)909History and Geography History World historyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.5)
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Just to illustrate my harsh judgment I offer a few quotes: "here I celebrate civilization and humanity's steady appetite to rebuild after the mighty collapse of entire empires". Or also: “what will become clear is that the march of civilization is more often a painful odyssey, revisiting the same mistakes and failed solutions time and again. But civilization marks the ultimate triumph of hope over experience.” I should see the TV series, but I’m pretty sure that under these solemn phrases there are exuberant horns blaring. Yikes. About the purely scientific errors in this book, see my History account on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4483805064 (