Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #319323 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It is, perhaps, in the end, too long. When the discussion turns to the recent past and a speculative future, its course has been run. However, for the subject it is comparatively terse (Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History ran to 12 toe-stubbing volumes), and the preceding 500 pages have blown by with the heady gusto of a prevailing wind, leaving the dedicated reader short of breath. Felipe Fern´ndez-Armesto is provocative, naughty, and deeply intelligent. He enjoys language in a way few modern novelists do, let alone historians, and his panoramic sweep of the world's civilizations is a proud and preening gesture, through which he rejects, as Norbert Elias did, civilization as a self-referential western concept, and embraces a multi-civilizational world, free of a linear interpretation of time. His aim is to return humankind to its "natural" context, from which for much of the previous few centuries he has, at least in western culture, expended considerable energy extricating itself. Civilizations, resolutely in the plural, are wrought, he contends, through a systematic refashioning of nature, with occasional conditional deferments. Whether through mutual contact or exclusivity, on the frozen tundra, desert sandscapes, highlands, lowlands, grasslands or fertile alluvial plains, and with timber, mud, stone or metal, human beings have consistently come together and shaped their communities accordingly, from the Phoenicians, Aztecs and Romans to the (now-extinct) bird-eating population of the Hebridean island of Hirta. It's all about food, of course, as the Greek empire's growth from the humble olive tree illustrates, but also wind and oceans, migration and colonialism, and while he speculates that the future might lie with a Pacific culture succeeding its Atlantic equivalent, both are still fledglings compared to the Indian Ocean's role in shaping history. The author of Millennium, Fern´ndez-Armesto enlivens his voluble anthropology with empirical tales of, and from, countless travellers, while almost nonchalantly lacing his whirlwind polemic with exquisite literary reference as his appraising lens zooms in and out like a hovering hawk. He calls it an "experimental work", and "written in something like a frenzy". That may be, but it's also daring, richly allusive, and maddeningly thrilling. --David Vincent

Synopsis
A close examination of the world's societies, from the maritime civilizations of the Polynesians to the Dawada people of the Sahara. Rather than looking to the familiar spots of Rome and Paris, Fernadez-Armesto takes us to unfamiliar territories to redifine our understanding of what it is to be civilized. Filled with anecdotal historical tales, shrewd insights and engaging arguments, this book concludes that societies can be judged on how civilized they are by investigating their interaction with their own environment.

From the Publisher
A radical cultural history of mankind
From the Preface: 'History is a humane pursuit, rather than a 'scientific' one, in the conventional sense, because the past is not present to our senses: we can only know other people's impressions and perceptions of it. Yet it ought to include everything science includes, because people are part of the awesome continuum of nature and you cannot encounter man except in the tangle of his environment and the mesh of eco-systems of which he forms a part. This book is a story of nature as well as of man. Unlike previous attempts to write the comparative history of civilizations, it is arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period, or society by society. It's purpose is to change the way we think about civilization: to present it as a relationship between one species and the rest of nature - not a phase of social development, nor a process of collective self-improvement, nor the climax of a progressive story, not just a suitable name for culture on a large scale, nor a synonym for excellence endorsed by elites. Whenever the word 'civilization' is properly used, it suggests a type of environment; but this meaning has got got buried under the rubble of misuse and needs to be excavated...'

The result of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto work is a series of startling and illuminating juxtapositions - the maritime civilizations of the Venetians and the Polynesians; the mountain cultures of Tibet and Papua New Guinea; the lifestyles of the English and the Iroquois. Societies that flourished in the Arctic, the Rain Forest and the Desert are re-evaluated alongside those of the ancient river-valleys of Mesopotamia, Egypt and China, where civilization is conventionally supposed to have started. In this book the search for civilization leads not to Imperial Rome, Enlightenment Paris and Renaissance Florence but rather to the Sahara of the Dawada people, the Aleut Islands of the icy northern Pacific, and the Indian Ocean where the Oran Laut 'boat people'. Illustrated throughout with historical anecdotes, such as the story of Ibn Battuta, the world's most travelled medieval pilgrim or a recreation of a timber-buying expedition to the Phoenicians 3000 years ago, Fernández-Armesto enlivens the theoretical. Finally, he concludes controversially that cultures can be ranked according to how civilized they are, and that on this scale the culture of white westerners comes low.

Written with the same flair and imagination as Millennium, Civilizations is a richly layered, hawk's eye image of the world - whole societies evoked from minute fragments of evidence. It is an immensely readable and controversial work about the environment and our historical relationship to it, which challenges the notion that nature is weak in the face of the human threat.

Customer Reviews

Refreshingly Overwhelming.
Around the world and through the ages, "Civilizations" takes the reader on a journey of discovery. Exotic lands, inhospitable climates and tantalising glimpses of forgotten cultures are all here.

The author has taken the approach of classifying civilisations not by their technological prowess or social structure, but by the geography in which they sustain themselves. Thus, chapters cover icy wastes, grassland, jungle, desert, etc,.

I was tempted to read this book by the promise of historical anecdotes and a wider coverage of human civilisation than most authors offer. Although Egypt, Greece and China have their place in this book, the reader is also allowed to stay for a while among the Mongol horde, voyage with the pioneering navigators of Polynesia and shiver in the mountains of Tibet.

Emphasis is placed on tradelinks and resources, but the author is quite happy to allow the figures of history to emerge from the landscape and make their presence known. There are quotes and extracts, as well as observations about the reasons for these expressions.

The prose is quite dry in places, yet in others it is as if you have the whole scene made real in front of you. When I read of the horrendous conditions of Frederik Hendrik Island, and the curious way in which its inhabitants survived there, I could feel my skin crawl and my boots fill with ooze, even as I sat on the bus into work.

Considering the great number of pages and the detail on each of them, I decided even before opening the book that it would be best read by selecting the most enigmatic culture and working my way down to the most familiar. I dip in, read some fascinating passage or enthralling chapter, and wait another day to read the next.

Suffice to say, I haven't finished the book yet, but this is definitely a companion for life - If only for the sheer variety of cultures on offer. I didn't fully appreciate until now how diverse civilisation could be. Not just that such and such a thing might be possible, but that it had already happened and happened sucessfully - Despite close-minded historians and paranoid nations belittling the achievements of lands they could claim no cultural connection with. For this, we need look no further than Great Zimbabwe or the nation of Meroe to see that mighty civilisations have been denied their rightful place in world history simply because archaeologists of the West refused to acknowledge that black Africans might build empires to rival those of Egypt or Rome.

This book can open up a whole new world. What's surprising is that it's the world we already live in.

Enjoyable and well written BUT
"Civilizations is a radical cultural history of mankinds fragile relationship with nature (...) Felipe Fernandez-Armesto closely examines the world's societies, from the maritime civilizations of the Polynesians to the Dawada people of Sahara. (...) The book concludes that societies CAN be judged on how civilized they are, and this decision can only be made by investigating their interaction with their own envirnoment. This conclusion is illuminated by wonderfully anecdotal historical insights and brilliant analysis."

As everyone knows, back cover blurb should not be taken too seriously. Even so, I would like to make some comments on the quotations above.

Fernandez-Armesto examines quite a few ancient and more recent civilizations, and he certainly does so by providing "wonderfully anecdotal insights". In fact, this is probably what I liked the most about the book. F-A is a splendid writer, among other things showing a talent for producing stunning one-liners like "Culturally, Las Vegas has never really ceased to be a desert", making most of the book both readable and enjoyable.

As for "brilliant analysis", I'm not so sure. Most of the discussion concerning what civilizations are and how you can judge them is concentrated to the beginning, and no clear "conclusion" is reached either. As it is now, you feel like you (or perhaps the author) lose the thread a couple of times before you've read all the 566 pages. (The author admits that his work is "experimental" though, so I guess it can be excused.)

BUT

The lack of focus was partly explained when I started reading "Truth" by the same author some time after finishing this book. For some reason, parts of "Truth" struck me as familiar, though I had never read it. After some checking in "Civilizations", he has copied whole pages of his earlier work and put it in "Civilizations". Parts concerning the Polynesians are the same, the part on the 6th century philosopher Boethius is the same etc. There are numerous examples. I found it really annoying.

It should have been 3.5 stars, because I did enjoy reading the book. I just don't like paying for the same text twice without knowing that I do.

A thoughtful account of civilisations
For those of you, who, like me, have delved into the canon of works on civilisations, this may be a welcome breeze of fresh air. F-A gives a refreshed definition on the difficult and timeless question of what actually is civilisation. A whirlwind account, in the prose of a professional poet, through various states, past and present, all with respect to their environment. Those who have read Jared Diamond's excellent 'Guns, Germs and Steel' will find this a useful corollory. This book encapsulates the sheer diversity and magesty of the world's people, without the stagnation caused by categorization as so often found in these books.