/lit/ - Literature

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Anonymous Fri Jan 16 18:33:31 2015 No.6011013 [Reply] [Original]

Hey guys I'm curious about "early humanity" in general because I'm really ignorant on the subject. All the information I have comes from Durant, but the book where he deals with the theme is 85 years old so I'm sure I need to update my shit

Basically I'm interested in *any* book there:
a) talks about the pre-historical man
b) describes the geological conditions that the first men had to live in and/or the geological conditions that enabled settled civilization
c) theorizes about the beginning of institutions such as the state and the family
d) deals with early religions, animism, paganism or what have you
e) just deal with any early civilization in general, or the civilizations that are typically "left out of history" like the native americans or the europeans before Rome

It doesn't matter if it's a textbook, popular history or dense academic shit, I'll manage with whatever as long as it's up-to-date with modern anthropoligical evidence and scientific knowledge

Anonymous Fri Jan 16 18:55:03 2015 No.6011125

People of the Earth or the condensed version World Prehistory: A Brief Introduction by Brian Fagan is the standard introductory textbook. Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years by Robert J. Wenke will give a different perspective linking developments worldwide.

Fagan's work can get rather technical and detailed and you might want a book that looks more at the big picture. But you have to be careful with those as they tend to be rather too sweeping making unsupportable claims.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 16 19:04:13 2015 No.6011188 File: 14 KB, 460x345, 27-alice1-af.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6011013 alice roberts is the writer you need

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 16 19:05:27 2015 No.6011192 What I can personally recommend that touches on this stuff: Roots of the Western Tradition History of the World in 6 Glasses Guns, Germs, and Steel Cities by John Reader Better Angels of Our Nature

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 17 06:47:11 2015 No.6013103 bump

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 17 07:00:48 2015 No.6013136 Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson

Anonymous Sat Jan 17 07:06:50 2015 No.6013153

I know the perfect book for you - its actually a history of the whole of mankind up the present day (and, indeed, the future). But a lot of it is about early man and exactly the kind of issues you describe. It's called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/21/sapiens-brief-history-mankind-review-yuval-noah-harari

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 17 07:08:26 2015 No.6013157 look up the quest for fire by Rosny the Elder any book by Rosny the Elder

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 17 07:09:47 2015 No.6013160 File: 31 KB, 390x640, 600full-mircea-eliade.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] check out eliade

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