Seller
Your price
£15.95
Trade or Institutional customer? Contact us about large order quotes.
Synopsis
This dazzling book takes us on a voyage of discovery around the world at the turn of the last millennium, when for the first time the world was in essence a unity. Islam bridged Eurasia, western Europe, and North Africa. Vikings, with links to Scandinavia and Russia, had just arrived in North America. These and other peoples reached out to create links and put isolated cultures unwittingly in touch. John Man vividly captures these epochal events, and depicts the colorful peoples that defined the world's mix of stability and change, of isolation and contact. In an immensely learned portrayal, he traces enduring cultural strands that became part of the world as we know it today.
In text, maps, and pictures, most in color, and drawing on the expertise of two dozen consultants, John Man has created a concise compendium of all the major cultures of the lost millennial world of 1000. In some cultures--Europe, Islam, China, and Japan--written records contain a vast range of materials, often revealing sharply focused details of life and personality. Here lie startling contrasts with today's world, and even foreshadowing of the future that are equally astonishing in their familiarity. For nonliterate cultures--in the United States, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, Africa--this book draws on a wealth of archeological research, some of it made available to nonspecialists for the first time. New & Used
| Seller | Information | Condition | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | - | New | Out of Stock |
What Reviewers Are Saying
For everyone tired of all the retrospectives of the past 200 years, Man offers a fresh look at the world at the dawn of the past millennium. Maps in the year 1000 reflected a flat world, but also one where people were beginning to cross borders and bring wide-ranging cultures and beliefs with them...Using a wealth of archaeological data and written records, Man explores topics ranging from racketeering Vikings in England to the expansion of Islam into Spain and the agricultural boon in China. * Science News * Contrarians wearied by the hoopla surrounding the new millennium might enjoy picking up John Man's Atlas of the Year 1000 and losing themselves in the world at the turn of the last millennium...Man argues in his introduction that the year 1000 marked a historical watershed. For the first time, human societies were in contact with each other to the extent that in theory a message or an artifact could be passed all the way around the world and through every continent. So the much-touted "one world" actually began a thousand years ago...A mental journey back 1000 years is a diverting way to spend a few hours while standing in line to cross that bridge to the 21st century. -- Fritz Lanham * Houston Chronicle * We are done not only with the old century, but another millennium. Or are we? John Man in his fascinating Atlas of the Year 1000 makes two telling points. First, other faiths use calendars different from the Christian; and second, in "the year 1000...for the first time in human history it was possible to pass an object...right around the world." Such contrasts, as he vividly describes, impacted time as much as those we experience in our space age. -- Ralph Hollenbeck * The Courier * As we enter the new millennium, with the expected retrospectives, this book provides a fascinating look at the end of the previous millennium. Man, a historian and travel writer, renders an engaging account of the world in the year 1000...The book is beautifully illustrated with maps and photographs of artifacts and includes arresting sidebars on politics, religion, literature, and economics that influences events of the last millennium. -- Vanessa Bush * Booklist * A lively atlas of the world a millennium ago uses colorful maps and illustrations to reveal a surprisingly dynamic and cosmopolitan planet, with an international Islamic empire stretching across three continents and explorers from Scandinavia planting flags in the Americas. * Forecast * A pleasant blend of cultural anthropology and cultural history, this volume re-creates the state of the known world as of the year 1000. The author has taken great pains to assemble and synthesize the best thought and research that have emanated from a number of disciplines and cultural institutions. -- Edmund F. SantaVicca * American Reference Books Annual *