The birth of history (After the Ice - Steven Mithen)

Member Name: steerpyke

Product:	After the Ice - Steven Mithen
Date:	13/06/06 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: an unusual and enlightened approach to a potentially heavy subject

Disadvantages: a very big book

The sub title of this book is an ideal summation of the books subject and at the same time an audacious claim, "A Global Human History 20000-5000BC." That is a long period of time to condense into one volume, even one like this that runs to over 600 pages. The advantage of looking at this period though is that unlike mans more recent development this period is a simpler time. There are no borders or countries, no politics, little evidence of religion beyond tribal custom and superstition, no money and no large-scale war. What the book then is left with is the growth of hunter-gatherer communities across the world and when viewed in these more specific terms is a much more manageable task. The parameters of the book are not just some arbitrary boundary but in themselves delineate a key stage in mans history. 22000 years ago puts us at the end of the high point of the last Ice Age, from here on global warming meant that the receding glaciers would give back the lush planet to mankind and a point from which the rise to modern urban civilization can be followed. The end point of 7000 years ago is the beginning of the age of metal working, copper and bronze were being experimented with and agriculture was in its early stages and these and other developments meant that the life of the semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer was being superseded by a fixed farm and crafting existence. So with an understanding of the start and end points of the journey Steven Mithen explores that great journey from mobile hunter to settled village farmer.

Rather than set down a basic introduction of common denominators the book gets down to business almost straight away. Divided up into sections along continental lines each chapter takes a location and examines the examples that it offers up to further our understanding of mans development with in the fifteen thousand years of the books scope. This makes the book accessible from more than one angle. If you are looking for an overall understanding of the global development of the period then the book can be read from cover to cover. If you are interested in a specific aspect, be it spiritual beliefs in Catalhoyuk, the colonisation of the Arctic lands or horticulture in New Guinea, then it is also very easy to cut to your area of interest.

What makes this book so easily usable is that Mithen has managed to cover a massive amount of ground in a jargon free and easily understandable text. But in moving away from the scholarly approach he has also avoided over-simplification. The rise of history on T.V. has often resulted in authors trying to cash in on this popularity by churning out superficial and inaccurate books that do nothing to further the general understanding of history in the long run. Mithen manages to find a middle ground that makes the book both highly readable and massively informative. One of the ways that he manages to bring his subject to life is through the very interesting approach of having an imaginary guide to visually introduce the site that is being discussed. Seeing the past in purely visual terms through human eyes really lifts the locations off of the page. Vivid descriptions of walking into a clearing and seeing the wood smoke rising from a hunters camp as it bustles with activity counts for a lot more than pages of dry superstition and analysis. At no point does Mitten ever try to push assumptions on the reader via these descriptions they are just there to set the scene before getting stuck into the more academic side of things.

It is this combination of clarity through description and an easily accessible text that make the book a bench mark in the mission to open up history to a wider audience. The period that the book covers has never been one that is an obvious catch for budding historians, but Mithen manages to really bring to life a period that has for a long time been treated as an information wasteland and instils it with a vibrancy and life that catches the imagination. It is a large and wide-ranging study but will deliver everything that you will ever need to know about the early prehistory of mankind.

620 pages Phoenix Books £10.99 in paperback (bought mine for about £8.00 through the History Guild Book Club.) Secondhand copies on e-bay and Amazon may be as low as a fiver.

Summary: All you need for an overview of the post glacial development of mankind