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Title: Millennium by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ISBN: 0-684-82536-8 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Dazzling!
Comment: The last few years have seen a flood of millennium-related books, ranging from the prophets of Y2K doom (or astronomical doom) to those of a new Eden. Admidst the more numerous books of a hysterical nature there have been a few more serious books that have attempted to put the events and changes of the last millenium in historical perspective, and to try and show how today's world evolved from its past.
I am an amateur reader of history, and the one conceptual difficulty I always have in reading history is seeing how events in different parts of the globe relate to one another in time. This is one area where "Millenium" excels. The author's command of history, and his abilty to smoothly move the narration through place and time creates, for the reader, a unified picture of the changes of a thousand years. No small trick.
As Fernandez-Armesto says in his preface, his aim is to "see the millennium from an imaginary distence...with unifying themes" and "to savor the differences from place to place and from time to time..." And so he does, with impressive skill. The resultant book is both scholarly and fascinating; on nearly every page you can find some previously unknown gem of art or history or technology.
You may not agree with the author's pronouncements for the future (as found in the epilogue) or his moral positions regarding present-day Western democracies, or even his economic analyses, but you cannot help but be impressed by his mastery of history, and you may find yourself swayed by the historical evidence he provides. A gem of a book, not to be missed.
Rating: 4
Summary: A magisterial review of the second millennium A.D.
Comment: In embarking on histories whose geograhpical or time spans are wide, as is the case of this book, it is always useful to remind oneself of some of the conceptual traps into which one can easily fall. In this sweeping work of world history, historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto notes at the outset a self-fulfilling delusion which the habit of thinking in terms of centuries and decades establishes. He then offers twenty-three chapters ranging across Christendom, Islamic civlization, Aztec, Mayan and other civilizations outside the Old World, and the great cilizations of Asia and Africa, where he begins his book with Japan in the year 1005 and returns there at the turn of the millenium. His analysis is selective, iconoclastic and interpretative, and his style is engaging. There may be very few popular global histories written with such an ambitious ambit and which, while containing so much rich scholarly work, avoids focusing our sights on the trees of individual nations and epochs, thus preserving our vision of the overall global historical forest. While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I found the forward-looking futurology in the epilogue less satisfying and convincing that the preceding historical chapters, a failing which the author himself seems to anticipate.Whether cities will wither or whether so-called large states will continue to fragment, as the author speculates, are highly debatable propositions. None of this detracts from the rest of the book which is magisterial and one to which one can easily return several times.
Rating: 5
Summary: Controversial, intriguing - a masterpiece
Comment: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is a national treasure of the British isles. He is one historian-thinker who emerges as non-partisan and straight-forward. While I thoroughly enjoy the works of Paul Johnson and have praised Daniel Boorstin to the skies, there is something magisterial about the author's works. The level of scholarship combines with his always intriguing conclusions and suppositions. What I like best about this trio is their apparent affinity for describing long arches of history which is not an easy task.
Throughout the book the author asks us to project ourselves 10,000 years in the future and imagine what a galactic museum would display as a representation of the past millenium. He eschews such names as "Industrial Revolution" or "Protestant Reformation" or "Dark Ages" because these are not truly (to him) historical events but the name given to a series of happenings.
He makes the argument that influences from one civilization to another tend to ebb and flow and it is only in hindsight that one can see the writing on the wall. He has high praise for the Chinese Empire, it's culture and traditions. He demonstrates (as does Boorstin in THE DISCOVERERS) that the emergence of Western Europe as a dominating force was something totally unforseen, particularly considering the dominance of China and the Muslim world. Although it conquered the globe, to Fernandez this was only a temporary blot in the (apparent) onward march of the Pacific Rim. What is amazing (and controversial) is his assertion that despite the overwhelming pervasiveness of the United States in almost every measurable category, the pendelum has begun to swing back. He demonstrates his thesis not through battles and politics but through the everyday lives of the people since these reflect the true cultural inputs.
The writing is beautiful - even poetic - and the illustrations that accompany the text are an added bonus. This book is a labor of love. I am not at all certain I agree with all of the author's assumptions but then what kind of historian would he be if I did?
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Title: Civilizations : Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ISBN: 074320249X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Truth : A History and a Guide for the Perplexed by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ISBN: 0312274947 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 12 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ISBN: 0743226445 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 20 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: From Dawn to Decadence : 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun ISBN: 0060928832 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 15 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Ideas That Changed the World by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ISBN: 0789496097 Publisher: DK Publishing Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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