This book explores the factors and mechanisms that may have influenced
the dynamic behaviors of earliest civilizations, focusing on both
environmental (geographic) factors on which traditional historic
analyses are based and human (behavioral) factors on which
anthropological analyses are usually based. It also resurrects a
number of common ancestral terms to help readers understand the
complicated process of human and cultural evolution around the globe.
Specifically, in almost all indigenous languages, the words ‘wa’
and any variants of it were originally associated with the sound of
crying of – and certainly were selected as the common ancestral word
with the meanings of “house, home, homeland, motherland, and so
on” by – early humans living in different parts of the world. This
book provides many neglected but still crucial environmental and
biological clues about the rise and fall of civilizations – ones
that have largely resulted from mankind’s long-lasting “Win-Stay
Lose-Shift” games throughout the world. The narratives and findings
presented at this book are unexpected but reasonable – and are what
every student of anthropology or history needs to know and doesn't get
in the usual text. “Professor Guo explores the dynamics of
civilizations from the beginnings to our perplexingly complex world.
There are lots of thought-provoking ideas here on the rise and decline
of civilizations and nations... Anyone wishing to understand global
developments should give this book serious consideration.”
----John Komlos, University of Munich, Germany, and Duke
University, USA “It is interesting to see a Chinese perspective on
the questions of deep history that have engaged Jared Diamond, Yuval
Harari and David Christian. Guo argues that understanding cyclical
threats has been the key to human progress, which is driven by the
dialectic of material privation and human ingenuity.”
----Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, USA
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9789811305474
Publisert
2018
Utgiver
Vendor
Springer
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter