In the Beginning: World History from Human Evolution to the First States

By Lauren Ristvet

This engaging and accessible volume draws on the most recent historical archeological scholarship to tell the stories of human evolution, "gathering and hunting" societies, and the distinct... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072848030
• ISBN13: 9780072848038
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 5.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book on Pre-History

In the beginning, according to all our western civilization textbooks, the dawn rose on the towering zigurats of Sumer, a thriving civilization, fully formed with irrigated agriculture and distinctive cuneiform script. This premise begs a lot of questions about what precisely happened during prehistory that led to the emergence of complex human societies and all of the associated accouterments. Ristvet fills this pedagogical gap with her excellent book. She synthesizes the most current anthropological research using a multi-regional approach (both Old World and New World) addressing essential topics such as early religions, the development of technologies and material culture, and the origins of agriculture and literacy. Most importantly the author manages to present these complex topics in a prose that is engaging, straight-forward, and current. I highly recommend this text to instructors of ancient history, western civilization, anthropology, and archaeology courses. Though, I bought it simply because I thought it would be a fascinating and enjoyable read. I was not disappointed.

Good Book

I studied under this Prof at Georgia State University and she knows what she is talking about. I loved the book and bought it because she does excellent work.