civilization according to warlords
344534
Fitzgerald traces what it meant for southern Chinese people to be incorporated into the empire. The imperial court pushed its standards, its religions, its family values, and its taxes down the villagers' throats. The account captures both the devoted cultural imperialism of court emissaries, and the eclectic local resistance. I feel, however, that this was not really a matter of expansion by "the Chinese people." It was a matter of an expanding imperial system, which regarded its subjects as civilized to the degree they conformed to the hierarchical, patriarchal ways of northern warlords.

--author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese Civilization
2359255
This book covers political system development since prehistory until French and American Revolution.  Dr. Fukuyama has done extensive research.  He has done extensive research and the coverage is quite thorough, although presentation of some places can be improved.  In comparison with Jared M. Diamond, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," W. W. Norton & Company, 1999, this book has a lot "meat".  Overall this is an excellent book.  The coverage on Rule of Law is the best I have seen so far.
4055290
Last Stand: Warlords is the third book in this post apocalyptic series written by author William H. Weber. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this exciting series.
2306404
Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) was a British historian whose ten-volume 'A Study of History' was an extremely popular approach to historical writing. The next volume in the series is&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Study-of-History-Volume-II/dp/B007XFHOS6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Study of History: Volume II</a>]. The first three volumes were released at the same time, in 1933. (2nd edition, 1935)

He sums up his provisional conclusions: "The 'intelligible fields of historical study'... are societies which have a greater extension, in both Space and Time, than national states or city-states, or any other political communities... Societies, not states, are 'the social atoms' with which students of history have to deal." (Pg. 44-45) Later, he outlines, "We have now identified twenty-one societies [see pg. 239] of the species to which our Western Society belongs and have classified them provisionally according to the criteria which we have employed in surveying them. The next step ... (is to) compare their performances in their geneses and growths, their breakdowns and disintegrations, their universal states and universal churches and heroic ages, their contacts in Time and in Space." (Pg. 147)

He argues, "This thesis that the present unification of the World on a Western basis is the consummation of a single continuous process which accounts for the whole of human history requires a violent distortion of historical facts and a drastic limitation of the historian's field of vision." (Pg. 151) He concludes, "We have now ascertained the nature of the geneses of civilizations. They are particular beats of a general rhythmical pulsation which runs through the Universe. Evidently this is as far as we can go in understanding how the geneses of civilization occur." (Pg. 205) Later, he adds, "the cause of the geneses of civilizations is not simple but multiple; it is not an entity but a relation." He calls this relation "Challenge-and-Response." (Pg. 271)

He outlines again, "we will now survey the origins of our twenty-one civilizations once more---taking note of any challenges which we may find to have been presented by the environment and of any responses which we may find to have been evoked, and contenting ourselves with observing, empirically, the phenomena of Challenge-and-Response in each particular instance, without postulating uniformity or expecting to discover a scientific law." (Pg. 301-302)

Toynbee, if he is read at all these days, is most often read in the two-volume abridgement of this work. (See&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Study-of-History-Vol-2/dp/0195050819/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Study of History, Vol. 2</a>). But the complete work is still well worth reading, for the additional details and abundant historical examples that he is able to include.
4441422
In civilization 4,  the player can design government and constitution.  I like that . Civilization 5 is more combat based.
3381245
There are already several good reviews to this book, so I will only suggest reading the following books in addition to Lynn's book: 1) above all, "War in human civilization" by Azar Gat; 2) "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; 3) "How War Began" by Keith F. Otterbein; and 4) "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" by Peter Turchin.
4729597
very good book with some good insights. I like the format of the book. Also reading Christian History by McGrath (different format) The two supplement each other. Suggested reading: ( 40-50 year textbooks on History of Civilization). It will definitely round up your education on the historical, social and economic status of the particular eras.
1973432
The authors, like me, are faculty at the Unversity of Michigan.  We are not in the same unit and I don't know the authors socially.

The authors of this very interesting book are 2 prominent archaeologists who spent their careers studying the emergence of state-level societies.  Flannerey and Marcus describe how stratified societies emerged from egalitarian foragers following the end of the last Ice Age.  Their method is to study ethnographic and historical accounts of human societies at varying levels of stratification to identify distinctive social features of these societies and their physical correlates.  The latter are used to identify the social features in archaeological studies and allow historical-sequential reconstruction.  Much of the book is devoted to providing a substantial number of examples of these analyses.  There is a lot of very interesting detail contained in the descriptions of ethnographic and archaeological studies.

The sequence that Flannery & Marcus reconstruct starts with foragers of the last Ice Age.  With a warming climate and more favorable conditions, more food resources became available, often in a "delayed return" strategy in which human efforts to increase foraging resources were potential precursors of sedentism and agriculture.  In many cases, these efforts led, over considerable time, to domestication of new food resources and agricultural societies.  This led to the formation of "achievement societies" in which individuals, generally men with talents, charisma, and drive could attain leading to dominating positions in their societies.  These societies did not usually exhibit hereditary privilege and had mechanisms to prevent hereditary stratification.  Flannery & Marcus are careful to point out societies, like those of the Pacific Northwest where this occurred without agriculture.  Under some circumstances, achievement societies would develop into "rank" societies with inherited privilege, often focused on single lineages.  Rank societies could then aggregate into kingdoms and kingdoms into early empires.

This is not a teleological scheme.  Flannery & Marcus stress that each stage can exhibit some equilibrium.  Achievement and Rank societies can cycle between these 2 conditions.  Flannery & Marcus describe the transitions between stages and some of the mechanisms, which often appear to be driven by forms of competition and emulation among societies and elites.  Technological innovations, warfare, and the highly contingent roles of charismatic individuals appear to be important in transitions.  Flannery & Marcus stress the roles of religion and cosmologies in providing legitimacy and social cement for differentiating societies.

Written for a general audience, this book contains more than enough scholarly detail to be useful to historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists, but the text is generally quite accessible and useful for general readers.  The bibliography is useful.  There are some minor defects.  Flannery & Marcus don't include an analytic overview that summarizes their scheme.  Some additional hypotheses about forces driving stage transitions would have been interesting.  Finally, implicit in much of the discussion is a view of human behavior which sees humans, particularly men, as having a significant impulse to domination.  In egalitarian forager societies, this is restrained by material circumstances and active efforts of these societies.  Flannery & Marcus suggest also that in many societies, social stratification is essentially displaced into cosmology with elements of such stratification returning in more complex societies via religious mechanisms.  This is quite interesting but not discussed explicitly.
3734366
The subject is crucial : twelve enigmas of old human history from the pyramids to the Mayas, from Stonehenge to the Incas, from Atlantis to Nan Matol. The method is interesting : to cover all the  debates  on each one, but also to collect all the available data and sound historical and archaeological facts. Then to consider that there is absolutely no racial limitation in man's creativity, no geographical and climatic unfavorable conditions for man's inventiveness and imagination. The book seems to clearly criticize those who see the hand of some extra-terrestrials or gods of some kind in these old archaeological realizations, as being in fact racist against the  whole  human race, or as being European-centered, hence racist against all men who are not European caucasoids, and even at times a narrower category like nordic or aryan European caucasoids. At the same time the book overuses the terms of  primitive  and  barbarians . It is not because some do not know how to write that they are more barbaric than those who know. Writing is a bad criterion, especially since we know today the Celts used the Ogham alphabet, and this after twenty centuries of belief that they could not write : one more myth that goes down the chute. It is not because a group of men practice human sacrifice and cannibalism that they are more barbaric than those who practice the death penalty in full stadiums or in front of TV cameras, than those who practice torture in some war prison in Baghdad, or some unknown dark hole. The question of civilization and barbarity is very relative and the borderline is very fuzzy, if there is any. The book would have been more modern if these words had been avoided. These people who erected these monuments were highly civilized for their times. And what's more, who is more barbaric between the Celts burning convicted criminals in some ritualistic ceremony (death penalty) and the Romans forcing gladiators to fight to the death in a circus, gladiators who were in no way criminals but just slaves who had this way --and only this way - a chance to maybe save their lives, at least for a while ? Civilization is at times so barbaric.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universit Paris Dauphine, Universit Paris I Panthon Sorbonne
3974947
I was doing some reading on ancient civilizations(hobby, not academic) and I couldn't find what I need on early Chinese civilization. Being Chinese myself, that's kind of frustrating. I actually can't find what I was looking for, online or in books. I guess in the busy competitive atmosphere back China nowadays, not many people, including scholars, are interested in the useless bygone days. So I was grateful that I stumbled across this book.

It is not exactly what I need, it is more like a thesis, with a healthy dose of tedious facts and cross-examinations. To me a much lighter reading with maybe 1/3 of the material would have been perfect, but it did fulfill my search. I was comparing different beliefs and religions and the progress and mutation of them in various part of the ancient world. This book filled a chunk of my Chinese region study.
4352359
This book is very aptly titled as there is a lot more about the after effects of the Mongol invasions than it is about the Mongols themselves. Mainly about its effects on Islamic and Chinese civilization. Part of the effect comes from the stitching together of all of these disparate cultures, and part of the effect comes from the fact that Europeans didn't bare the brunt of the Mongol Invasions, but did benefit from the cultural sharing of the other major civilizations.

This book goes well with Jack Weatherford's Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. There are some differences and this will give you a new perspective. Very useful if you want to then continue with your own research. As always Matt Buttsworth does his homework.
4472018
Yahoo! Dr. Don Ryan has come out with another great book about ancient times!  His Lost Civilizations "Idiot's Guide" got me interested in a whole lot of things, especially Egypt, so I'm pleased to see that's he's put out a fun-to-read book specifically on that subject.  Where were books like this when I was in college?
908392
A very interesting idea about how an old empire can become complacent and allow older technology to slip out of hand to allies and mercenaries.  Then, if such allies or mercenaries also become complacent, watch out for "barbarians", they may just eat your lunch.
3142356
Through account of varied perspectives on history's big names that have shaped civilization to date...unfortunately for my local library i will keep this book.
4830292
This is the comprehensive history providing the reader with a sense of how civilizations rise and fall. The first two chapters are dense, illustrating Beckwith's analytical methods for his future recordings and conjectures. Ranging from the Danube to Japan, including Russia and into North Africa, the emphasis is on the Steppes and surrounding landscapes. Although Western historians have historically referred to the people of the Steppes as "Barbarians," Beckwith argues that (1) they were no more bloodthirsty than the Romans or other empire builders, (2) they sought trade and resorted to war only when favorable trade terms were refused, (3) they were the source of the Great Migration and, thus, most Western peoples and many Western ideals. Interesting lessons: you could tell which culture brought in specific advanced implements; their language names the machine. Chariots required a totally different design than ox carts, were available only to people who had domesticated horses, made a significant change in warfare. The Silk Road was inland-oriented and the city/states of the Eurasian areas ignored the coastal areas, leaving them ripe for development by the Portuguese and other Europeans once their naval abilities were developed. Power in these Asian countries shifted from the interior to the coast. The division of the Eurasian land mass, in the void created by the fall of the Byzantine and Tibet empires, among others, was possible in the 18th century; the stagnation and closed borders enforced by the Rus and the Chinese have driven the area into poverty, both economic and cultural. This is a thoughtfully constructed treatise, giving a comprehensive overview of a sometimes enigmatic geographical area. Beckwith's screed against Modernity, however, is repetitious and could have used a good editor. Additional maps would have been helpful.
4699138
If you have an innate curiosity for where our (mainly western) civilization comes from than this book is for you. However when speaking about as broad a topic as the history of THE WORLD you are necessarily going to have significant gaps in your analysis. JM roberts is open about his limitations and narrows the scope to events which played a major part in pushing humanity from one movement to another.  I began reading his 1976 edition a while back in school, and am very pleased with this updated version which includes a much more thorough analysis of the prehistoric period using up to date findings and techniques. He also expands on the history of the Middle East and Asia, shedding a much greater light on their influences in history.  This book serves at its best, as a terrific baseline for covering the main historical topics which will give the casual reader a great foundation in world events and the more dedicated historian a great source of topics to dig into using other more in-depth sources. A must have for every home library!
3560314
I showed this to 8th grade World Civilizations students as they completed a study of feudal Japan. It was well received by them. They were impressed with the period details and the attention to aspects of Japanese culture, both being new information avenues for this group of students in the southeastern U.S.