David Christian This Fleeting World Analysis
David Christian, This Fleeting World : A Short History of Humanity. Great Barrington, MA;
Berkshire Publishing, 2008; 120 pp. $14.95 (paperback)
In This Fleeting World, David Christian delivers a wonderful thesis about world history, starting with the “Big Bang” around 13.7 billion years ago leading to the formation of this world, life, humans and their survival realm that leads into this present day. Christian deliberately describes three eras in order, comparing and contrasting attributes such as survival techniques, kinship/social skills, technology and architecture showing changes through time. The “Afro-Eurasian” continent is the starting point Christian uses to explain the expansion of humanity relating to the “Out of Africa” theory. …show more content…
The era of foragers, also known as the “Paleolithic era” deals with the lives of hunter-gatherers, who had survived for over 240,000 years. Their nomadic lifestyles of traveling and hunting has created a huge impact to the environment and their sophisticated technology, such as sticks and stones allowed them to settle adaptively across the globe with different climates. Succeeding foraging is the agrarian era, that lasted for almost ten thousand years. In this era, advancement with agriculture and pastoralism were a necessity as it allowed cities, states, and empires to form. Complex societies, especially hierarchy, followed along. The modern era is described to be the fastest out of the three eras proved that tremendous in population, innovation, and productivity in less than a millennium was possible. The industrial revolution was the next level of domination after agriculture and since has shaped the world through today where better sophisticated technology (such as the steam engine that allowed quick supply of cheap energy) was able to expand to all regions. After the main text, this book ends with the resource pages, periodization chapter, and the index. (need
Berkshire Publishing, 2008; 120 pp. $14.95 (paperback)
In This Fleeting World, David Christian delivers a wonderful thesis about world history, starting with the “Big Bang” around 13.7 billion years ago leading to the formation of this world, life, humans and their survival realm that leads into this present day. Christian deliberately describes three eras in order, comparing and contrasting attributes such as survival techniques, kinship/social skills, technology and architecture showing changes through time. The “Afro-Eurasian” continent is the starting point Christian uses to explain the expansion of humanity relating to the “Out of Africa” theory. …show more content…
The era of foragers, also known as the “Paleolithic era” deals with the lives of hunter-gatherers, who had survived for over 240,000 years. Their nomadic lifestyles of traveling and hunting has created a huge impact to the environment and their sophisticated technology, such as sticks and stones allowed them to settle adaptively across the globe with different climates. Succeeding foraging is the agrarian era, that lasted for almost ten thousand years. In this era, advancement with agriculture and pastoralism were a necessity as it allowed cities, states, and empires to form. Complex societies, especially hierarchy, followed along. The modern era is described to be the fastest out of the three eras proved that tremendous in population, innovation, and productivity in less than a millennium was possible. The industrial revolution was the next level of domination after agriculture and since has shaped the world through today where better sophisticated technology (such as the steam engine that allowed quick supply of cheap energy) was able to expand to all regions. After the main text, this book ends with the resource pages, periodization chapter, and the index. (need