This book offers a new, unconventional outlook on architecture, presenting some aspects of its evolution. It demonstrates how prehistoric people developed the art of building when trying to solve increasingly complicated spatial and structural problems. The book shows the activity of building to be in synergy with the parallel advancement of the human ability to think in symbolic and abstract terms. The anthropological approach of this book will allow scientists to formulate the general principles and regularities of the development of architecture within a new field of studies, named the “Ontogenesis of Architecture”.
This book offers a new, unconventional outlook on architecture, presenting some aspects of its evolution. It demonstrates how prehistoric people developed the art of building when trying to solve increasingly complicated spatial and structural problems. The book shows the activity of building to be in synergy with the parallel advancement of the human ability to think in symbolic and abstract terms. The anthropological approach of this book will allow scientists to formulate the general principles and regularities of the development of architecture within a new field of studies, named the â oeOntogenesis of Architectureâ .
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations
Chronologically traces the course of human history and civilization from prehistoric times to the present day, covering key events, people, inventions and discoveries, and ideas and beliefs.
A bold new theory on what sparked the "big bang" of human culture The abrupt emergence of human culture over a stunningly short period continues to be one of the great enigmas of human evolution. This compelling book introduces a bold new theory on this unsolved mystery. Author Richard Klein reexamines the archaeological evidence and brings in new discoveries in the study of the human brain. These studies detail the changes that enabled humans to think and behave in far more sophisticated ways than before, resulting in the incredibly rapid evolution of new skills. Richard Klein has been described as "the premier anthropologist in the country today" by Evolutionary Anthropology. Here, he and coauthor Blake Edgar shed new light on the full story of a truly fascinating period of evolution. Richard G. Klein, PhD (Palo Alto, CA), is a Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. He is the author of the definitive academic book on the subject of the origins of human culture, The Human Career. Blake Edgar (San Francisco, CA) is the coauthor of the very successful From Lucy to Language, with Dr. Donald Johanson. He has written extensively for Discover, GEO, and numerous other magazines.
Mimesis, Expression, Construction brings Fredric Jameson's famous Duke University seminar on Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory into print for the first time. Transcribed and edited from audio recordings taken by Octavian Esanu of the original seminar at Duke University in 2003, Mimesis, Expression, Construction reproduces Jameson and his students' engagement with Aesthetic Theory, one of the most influential theories of modernist aesthetics. The first and only published record of Jameson's teaching and pedagogic style, the seminar delves into modern and modernist aesthetics through the perspectives of Kant, Hegel, Freud, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche; Benjamin and other members of the Frankfurt School; the literary works of Thomas Mann and Samuel Beckett; the music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg; the films of Chaplin, Vertov and Eisenstein; the aesthetic implications of psychoanalysis and biblical exegesis; classical music; and more. Presented in the format of a play, with stage setting, student interruptions and exchanges, interjections, auditory noises, and ambient sounds, and complemented with scans of students' notes, Mimesis, Expression, Construction is a groundbreaking addition to the work of one of the greatest modern cultural critics.
Islam Between East and West - Islamic and Western philosophies examined, by the first president of Bosnia. In comparing the offerings of secular civilization with the truths and justice of Islam, the author analyzes the West’s denial of Islam and the lack of progress among Muslims. An inspiring and astonishingly integrated analysis of the human condition. The seep of its power gives an invigorating sense of the beauty and universality of Islam. Referrals for Islam Between East and West An inspiring and astonishingly integrated analysis of the human condition. The sweep of its power gives an invigorating sense of the beauty and universality of Islam. Robin Woodsworth Carlsen For centuries Europe has benefitted from Islam, often without acknowledging it and without giving anything in return. Now with the publication of Islam Between East and West, Europe has begun to pay its debt to Islam. Rational and yet not insulting to the emotions, it exalts the spirit without denigrating the body. But what stands it apart as a landmark is its transcendental wisdom expressed in a style inherent to all noble ideas. Doubtless, its appeal will go beyond its time because it embraces life - and there is no theme greater than life. M . Tariq
This unique book reveals the existence of an advanced civilization where none was known before, presenting an entirely new perspective on the culture and history of Tibet. In his groundbreaking study of an epic period in Tibet few people even knew existed, John Vincent Bellezza details the discovery of an ancient people on the most desolate reaches of the Tibetan plateau, revolutionizing our ideas about who Tibetans really are. While many associate Tibet with Buddhism, it was also once a land of warriors and chariots, whose burials included megalithic arrays and golden masks. This first Tibetan civilization, known as Zhang Zhung, was a cosmopolitan one with links extending across Eurasia, bringing it in line with many of the major cultural innovations of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Based on decades of research, The Dawn of Tibet draws on a rich trove of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic materials collected and analyzed by the author. Bellezza describes the vast network of castles, temples, megaliths, necropolises, and rock art established on the highest and now depopulated part of the Tibetan plateau. He relates literary tales of priests and priestesses, horned deities, and the celestial afterlife to the actual archaeological evidence, providing a fascinating perspective on the origins and development of civilization. The story builds to the present by following the colorful culture of the herders of Upper Tibet, an ancient people whose way of life is endangered by modern development. Tracing Bellezza’s epic journeys across lands where few Westerners have ventured, this book provides a compelling window into the most inaccessible reaches of Tibet and a civilization that flourished long before Buddhism took root.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
