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The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Robert Darnton · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorColor: A Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay · 448 pages
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson · 560 pages
"As I stood on the roof of my house, taking in this unexpected view, it struck me how glorious it was that this was exactly how this land must have looked to centuries of people, quietly going about their daily business – eating, sleeping, having sex, endeavouring to be amused – and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mo
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
Guy Deutscher · 304 pages
This book confronts the thorny question of how and whether culture shapes language and language, culture. Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaim
After The Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 B.C.
Steven Mithen · 664 pages
"After the Ice is the story of a momentous period: one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could bring anything from the spread of lush woodland to apocalyptic floods - and one that contains the origins of civilisation itself. For, by its close, dogs, sheep and cattle had been domesticated; rice, wheat and cotton were being harvested; and permanent villages and towns had sprung up
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Jared Diamond · 494 pages
An epic detective story that offers a gripping expose on why the world is so unequal. Professor Jared Diamond traveled the globe for over 30 years trying to answer this question.
A Short History of Progress
Ronald Wright · 211 pages
Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200 by driving a whole herd over a cliff had made too much. Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century´s runaway growth has
The Invention of Tradition
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Prys Morgan, David Cannadine, Bernard S. Cohn · 320 pages
Dark Emu
Bruce Pascoe · 277 pages
In this seminal book, Bruce Pascoe uncovers evidence that long before the arrival of white men, Aboriginal people across the continent were building dams and wells; planting, irrigating, and harvesting seeds, and then preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds, or secure vessels; and creating elaborate cemeteries and manipulating the landscape. All of these behaviors were inconsistent
The Conquest of America
Tzvetan Todorov · 274 pages
Description. The Conquest of America is a fascinating study of cultural confrontation in the New World, with implications far beyond sixteenth-century America. The book offers an original interpretation of the Spaniards' conquest, colonization, and destruction of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie · 383 pages
"Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has had a success which few historians experience and which is usually reserved for the winner of the Prix Goncourt...Montaillou, which is the reconstruction of the social life of a medieval village, has been acclaimed by the experts as a masterpiece of ethnographic history and by the public as a sensational revelation of the thoughts, feelings, and activities of the ordin
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
Nathaniel Philbrick · 452 pages
"Among the best books of this or any other year."-Los Angeles Times Book ReviewAmerica's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea-and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his bestselling In the Heart of the Sea Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambiti
The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation
Mark Kurlansky · 399 pages
"The Basque History of the World is the illuminating story of an ancient and enigmatic people. Signs of their civilization existed well before the arrival of the Romans in 218 B.C., and though theories abound, no one has ever been able to determine their origins. Their ancient tongue, Euskera, is equally mysterious: It is the oldest living European language, and is related to no other language on
A History of Warfare
John Keegan · 432 pages
In *A History of Warfare*, Keegan outlines the development and limitations of warfare from prehistory to the modern era. It looks at various topics, including the use of horses, logistics, and "fire". One key concept put forward is that war is inherently cultural. In the introduction, he rigorously denounces the idiom "war is a continuation of policy by other means", rejecting on its face "Clausew
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
Riane Eisler · 261 pages
"In prehistorical times, Eisler argues, women and men lived together in egalitarian communities devoted to nurturance; with the imposition of male domination, female values gave way to creeds of hierarchy, aggression, power, obedience. Eisler, a futurist, posits a new society based on the recovery of more humane values."--Library journal (6/1/85).
The Discovery of France
Graham Robb · 480 pages
"From maps, migration and magic, to linguistic differences and tribal disputes, The Discovery of France tells the whole story of this remarkable - and surprising - country."--Jacket.
Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
Frances Larson · 336 pages
A serious and seriously entertaining exploration of the dark and varied obsessions that the “civilized West” has had with decapitated heads and skulls. The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet ther
Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto · 258 pages
When God Was a Woman
Merlin Stone · 265 pages
Here, archaeologically documented is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Known by many names, she reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. How did the change in women's roles come about? By documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmans, Stone details an ancient conspiracy that laid the foundation for one of culture's greatest shams--the legend of Adam and fallen Eve.
The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character
Samuel Noah Kramer · 372 pages
A depiction of the Sumerian civilization in ancient Mesopotamia based on excavated literary tablets. Describes all that was understood about the civilization at the time of its writing. Tells of how the Sumerians were found from archaeological studies and then goes into interpretation of their history, society, religion, literature, education, character, and legacy among later cultures.