Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.63 (552 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B073QT8FTH |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 348 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-03-07 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The book is an engaging, introductory-level survey of collapse in the archaeology/history literature, which will be ideal for use in courses on the collapse of civilizations, sustainability, and climate change. He offers a fresh interpretation of collapse that will be accessible to both students and scholars. In this lively survey, Guy D. Understanding Collapse explores the collapse of ancient civilisations, such as the Roman Empire, the Maya, and Easter Island. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted. Rather than positing a single explanatory model of collapse - economic, social, or environmental - Middleton gives full consideration to the overlooked resilience in communities of ancient peoples and the choices that they made. It includes up-to-date case studies of famous and less well-known examples of collapses, and is illustrated with 25 black and white illustrations, 3 line drawings, 16 tables and 18 maps.
It is informative from beginning to end and gracefully written.' Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan . It carefully dissects theories, especially grand theories, and marshals data so that the reader can see what collapses (and what doesn't) in major cases from Rome and Egypt to the Maya and Easter Island. 'Middleton's book is the best introduction to 'collapsology'
As well as teaching at universities in the UK, he has lived and worked in Greece, Korea, and for some years at the University of Tokyo, Japan. For his PhD at the University of Durham he studied the collapse of Mycenaean states around 1200 BC. His works on collapse include: 'Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies' (Journal of Archaeological Research, 2012) and The Collapse of Palatial Society in Late