The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE PDF Author: Ian Tattersall
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0195167120
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the Agricultural Revolution.

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE PDF Author: Ian Tattersall
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0195167120
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book

Book Description
In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the Agricultural Revolution.

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE PDF Author: Ian Tattersall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fossil hominids
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
To be human is to be curious. And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are--how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our own evolution. In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both the fossil and archeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family Hominidae, through the emergence of Homo sapiens, to the Agricultural Revolution. He begins with an accessible overview of evolutionary theory and then exploresthe.

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE PDF Author: Ian Tattersall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199721718
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
To be human is to be curious. And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are--how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our own evolution. In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the Agricultural Revolution. He begins with an accessible overview of evolutionary theory and then explores the major turning points in human evolution: the emergence of the genus Homo, the advantages of bipedalism, the birth of the big brain and symbolic thinking, Paleolithic and Neolithic tool making, and finally the enormously consequential shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies 10,000 years ago. Focusing particularly on the pattern of events and innovations in human biological and cultural evolution, Tattersall offers illuminating commentary on a wide range of topics, including the earliest known artistic expressions, ancient burial rites, the beginnings of language, the likely causes of Neanderthal extinction, the relationship between agriculture and Christianity, and the still unsolved mysteries of human consciousness. Complemented by a wealth of illustrations and written with the grace and accessibility for which Tattersall is widely admire, The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE invites us to take a closer look at the strange and distant beings who, over the course of millions of years, would become us.

Gender: A World History

Gender: A World History PDF Author: Susan Kingsley Kent
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190621990
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Gender exists in almost every society as a way of organizing its people. Gender is used to assign certain responsibilities, obligations, and privileges to some, and to deny them to others. In Gender: A World History, Susan Kingsley Kent tells the story of this seemingly simple but in fact quite complex concept. With historical perspective she critically examines our everyday understandings of women and men, masculinity and femininity, and sexual difference in general. Central to this account is the conviction that gender is neither natural nor innocent. What passes for masculinity and femininity in one society might not do so in another. Even the passing of time can change what gender looks like in a particular culture. Thinking about the history of gender can also shed light on other types of relations, such as those between a government and its people, between different social classes, and between a colony and its colonizer. Ranging from prehistory to the present, this book presents a chronological picture of gender across the globe. From Hatshepsut and the rise of patriarchy in the ancient world, to the Bushido code of the samurai in wartime, to Susan B. Anthony and the women's rights movement in the United States, to the gay and trans rights movements of today, the force of gender in world history cannot be denied.

The Atlantic in World History

The Atlantic in World History PDF Author: Karen Ordahl Kupperman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019998655X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
As Europeans began to move into the Atlantic in the late fifteenth century, first encountering islands and then two continents across the sea, they initiated a process that revolutionized the lives of people everywhere. American foods enriched their diets. Furs, precious metals, dyes, and many other products underwrote new luxury trades, and tobacco became the first consumer craze as the price plummeted with ever-enlarging production. Much of the technology that made new initiatives, such as sailing out of sight of land, possibly drew on Asian advances that came into Europe through North Africa. Sugar and other crops came along the same routes, and Europeans found American environments ideal for their cultivation. Leaders along the African coast controlled the developing trade with Europeans, and products from around the Atlantic entered African life. As American plantations were organized on an industrial scale, they became voracious consumers of labor. American Indians, European indentured servants, and enslaved Africans were all employed, and over time slavery became the predominant labor system in the plantation economies. American Indians adopted imported technologies and goods to enhance their own lives, but diseases endemic in the rest of the world to which Americans had no acquired immunity led to dramatic population decline in some areas. From Brazil to Canada, Indians withdrew into the interior, where they formed large and powerful new confederations. Atlantic exchange opened new possibilities. All around the ocean, states that had been marginal to the main centers in the continents' interiors now found themselves at the forefront of developing trades with the promise of wealth and power. European women and men whose prospects were circumscribed at home saw potential in emigration. Economic aspirations beckoned large numbers, but also, in the maelstrom following the Reformation, others sought the chance to worship as they saw fit. Many saw their hopes dashed, but some succeeded as they had desired. Ultimately, as people of African and European descent came to predominate in American populations, they broke political ties to Europe and reshaped transatlantic relationships.

The Indian Ocean in World History

The Indian Ocean in World History PDF Author: Edward A. Alpers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195337875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The Indian Ocean in World History explores the cultural exchanges that took place in this region from ancient to modern times.

Mexico in World History

Mexico in World History PDF Author: William H. Beezley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019972220X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Drawing on materials ranging from archaeological findings to recent studies of migration issues and drug violence, William H. Beezley provides a dramatic narrative of human events as he recounts the story of Mexico in the context of world history. Beginning with the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and their brutal defeat at the hands of the Conquistadors, Beezley highlights the penetrating effect of Spain's three-hundred-year colonial rule, during which Mexico became a multicultural society marked by Roman Catholicism and the Spanish language. Independence, he shows, was likewise marked by foreign invasions and huge territorial losses, this time at the hands of the United States, who annexed a vast land mass--including the states of Texas, New Mexico, and California--and remained a powerful presence along the border. The 1910 revolution propelled land, educational, and public health reforms, but later governments turned to authoritarian rule, personal profits, and marginalization of rural, indigenous, and poor Mexicans. Throughout this eventful chronicle, Beezley highlights the people and international forces that shaped Mexico's rich and tumultuous history.

South Asia in World History

South Asia in World History PDF Author: Marc Jason Gilbert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190661372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Few regions have shaped the world's history as deeply as South Asia. The birthplace of three of the world's major religions-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism-the Indian subcontinent has made indelible contributions to the world, from foods such as curry and granulated sugar to the performance of meditation and yoga, from the architectural magnificence of the Taj Mahal to the binary system of numbers. In this accessible book, Marc Jason Gilbert takes us on a journey through South Asia's fascinating history, starting with the blossoming of the Harappan civilization in the fertile Indus valley more than four thousand years ago. Following the routes of the cotton, tea, and opium trade that connected the West and the East throughout history, Gilbert describes South Asia's classical Hindu and Buddhist empires, the coming of Islam to South Asia, the local impact of the Mongol invasions, the splendors of the Mughal Empire, the expansion of British colonial dominion, and the development of South Asian modern nations-Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, and Myanmar-in the twentieth century. The book concludes with a timely reflection on the contradictory face of contemporary South Asia. Although the region has produced some of the world's most iconic leaders of non-violent protest-Mahatma Gandhi, Arundhati Roy, Mother Teresa, and Aung San Suu Kyi-severe social divisions and injustice persist in most South Asian countries. Simultaneously, extraordinary economic growth is deeply transforming South Asian societies and may enable them to rival the United States and China as the world's largest economies. Gilbert's transnational perspective illuminates how world historical processes-from changes in the environment and the economy to the movement of peoples and ideas-have shaped and continue to shape the history of South Asia and its place in the wider world.

Central Asia in World History

Central Asia in World History PDF Author: Peter B. Golden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199793174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the "pivot of history," a land where nomadic invaders and Silk Road traders changed the destinies of states that ringed its borders, including pre-modern Europe, the Middle East, and China. In Central Asia in World History, Peter B. Golden provides an engaging account of this important region, ranging from prehistory to the present, focusing largely on the unique melting pot of cultures that this region has produced over millennia. Golden describes the traders who braved the heat and cold along caravan routes to link East Asia and Europe; the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan and his successors, the largest contiguous land empire in history; the invention of gunpowder, which allowed the great sedentary empires to overcome the horse-based nomads; the power struggles of Russia and China, and later Russia and Britain, for control of the area. Finally, he discusses the region today, a key area that neighbors such geopolitical hot spots as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.

Iran in World History

Iran in World History PDF Author: Richard C. Foltz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199335508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
A convergence of land and language (3500-550 BCE) -- Iran and the Greeks (550-247 BCE) -- Parthians, Sasanian and Sogdians (247 BCE-651 CE) -- The Iranization of Islam (651-1027) -- The Turks: empire-builders and champions of Persian culture (1027-1722) -- Under Europe's shadow (1722-1925) -- Modernization and dictatorship: the Pahlavi years (1925-79) -- The Islamic republic of Iran (1979-present)