Fifth Beginning What Six Milli

Kelly, Robert L.

ISBN 10: 0520303482 / ISBN 13: 9780520303485

Verlag: University of California Press, 2019

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 00104888797

Inhaltsangabe:

"I have seen yesterday. I know tomorrow." This inscription in Tutankhamun's tomb summarizes The Fifth Beginning. Here, archaeologist Robert L. Kelly explains how the study of our cultural past can predict the future of humanity.

In an eminently readable style, Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human development: the emergence of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state. In each example, the author examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive, no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead, giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning, one that started about AD 1500. Some might call it "globalization," but the author places it in its larger context: a five-thousand-year arms race, capitalism's global reach, and the cultural effects of a worldwide communication network.

Kelly predicts that the emergent phenomena of this fifth beginning will include the end of war as a viable way to resolve disputes, the end of capitalism as we know it, the widespread shift toward world citizenship, and the rise of forms of cooperation that will end the near-sacred status of nation-states. It's the end of life as we have known it. However, the author is cautiously optimistic: he dwells not on the coming chaos, but on humanity's great potential.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor: Robert L. Kelly is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming. He is a past president of the Society for American Archaeology, current editor of American Antiquity, author of The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers, and coauthor of two popular textbooks, Archaeology and Archaeology: Down to Earth. He has conducted archaeological research throughout the western United States for more than forty years.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Fifth Beginning What Six Milli
Verlag: University of California Press
Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
Einband: Softcover
Zustand: Good