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The Far Edges of the Known World
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 8, 2026
This is the sort of book I really enjoy. One that opens your eyes to histories, ideas, places that you don't know a huge amount about but helps you picture them together in a world trading, talking, and learning from each other even as we always look at the places we've always looked at. The difference between the centre of Empires and its edges.
My understanding over time has led me to understand that the Mediterranean, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and China were more connected than we once thought. Or that Ethiopia has one of the oldest Christian Churches in the world, but I didn't know a lot of what is in this book. Particularly about the influence of Greece on Buddhist art. As one example.
This book also made me realise I need to read more about the histories of Asia and Africa. (Those came up in the book. I'm aware that the same applies to South and Central America but neither of those came up because - as far as we know so far - there wasn't any trade relationship between Europe and the Americas for a long, long time. And when it did happen it led to a revolution in trade.)
Owen Rees divides his book into four sections: Pre-History, The Greek World, The Roman World and Beyond The Classical World. In each section he talks about a particular place, say, Lake Turkana in Kenya (from the Pre-History section) and talks about what the site is and what it means about our understanding of history. What questions it asks of our perceptions of the world.
There's a running theme of how colonial powers - from all periods of history - look askance at those on the edges of the Empires - the barbarians. And this isn't just a Western thing. The Egyptians did it to the Kush, the Chinese did it to the Vietnamese. It's just one of those things colonial powers do to justify their colonialism. It's easy to kill and rob when you think you're superior to other people.
But Rees wants to make a point that reality is always more complicated and that just because a culture chooses to wear trousers it doesn't make them less cultured.
Really interesting read that's forced me to look at reading more books and go down more rabbit holes.
My understanding over time has led me to understand that the Mediterranean, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and China were more connected than we once thought. Or that Ethiopia has one of the oldest Christian Churches in the world, but I didn't know a lot of what is in this book. Particularly about the influence of Greece on Buddhist art. As one example.
This book also made me realise I need to read more about the histories of Asia and Africa. (Those came up in the book. I'm aware that the same applies to South and Central America but neither of those came up because - as far as we know so far - there wasn't any trade relationship between Europe and the Americas for a long, long time. And when it did happen it led to a revolution in trade.)
Owen Rees divides his book into four sections: Pre-History, The Greek World, The Roman World and Beyond The Classical World. In each section he talks about a particular place, say, Lake Turkana in Kenya (from the Pre-History section) and talks about what the site is and what it means about our understanding of history. What questions it asks of our perceptions of the world.
There's a running theme of how colonial powers - from all periods of history - look askance at those on the edges of the Empires - the barbarians. And this isn't just a Western thing. The Egyptians did it to the Kush, the Chinese did it to the Vietnamese. It's just one of those things colonial powers do to justify their colonialism. It's easy to kill and rob when you think you're superior to other people.
But Rees wants to make a point that reality is always more complicated and that just because a culture chooses to wear trousers it doesn't make them less cultured.
Really interesting read that's forced me to look at reading more books and go down more rabbit holes.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review