The Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE-500 CE

The Cambridge World History

by Graeme Barker (Editor), Candice Goucher (Editor)

The development of agriculture has often been described as the most important change in all of human history. Volume 2 of the Cambridge World History series explores the origins and impact of agriculture and agricultural communities, and also discusses issues associated with pastoralism and hunter-fisher-gatherer economies. To capture the patterns of this key change across the globe, the volume uses an expanded timeframe from 12,000 BCE–500 CE, beginning with the Neolithic and continuing into later periods. Scholars from a range of disciplines, including archaeology, historical linguistics, biology, anthropology, and history, trace common developments in the more complex social structures and cultural forms that agriculture enabled, such as sedentary villages and more elaborate foodways, and then present a series of regional overviews accompanied by detailed case studies from many different parts of the world, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

Genres: History, Prehistory, World History, Ancient

662 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2015

About the author

Graeme Barker is Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. His research focuses on the relationships between past human societies and their environments and how they have transformed each other. He has worked in many different ecologies and with societies at different levels of complexity from the emergence of our species to Roman farmers and, currently in Borneo, present-day rainforest farmers and foragers.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

The most important thing I learned after reading this second volume of the Cambridge World History is that in recent decades archeology clearly has moved away from an overly Western approach to the Neolithic. This term was coined in the mid-20th century by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe, based on finds in Southwest Asia, with the Levant (present-day Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and South-East-Turkey) as the core region. In the decades that followed, this region was used as a general model to establish the historic process of agrarian and sedentary transition: first the domestication of wild crops, coupled with increasingly larger, permanent places of residence, and then also the domestication of animals. Scientists have long assumed that this evolution also occurred more or less elsewhere, in places where agriculture developed autonomously, or where it was simply taken over from the areas of origin.

This Cambridge collection made it clear to me that the Neolithisation (the term still is quite commonly used despite the objections) was an infinitely more complex event, with very local accents. As the compilers themselves write: “Perhaps the dominant message from this book is that the global pathways to food production were many and varied. The development of agriculture was a profoundly human trajectory, bewilderingly complex and often contradictory in its implications.” For example, it appears that in the spread of agricultural practices there was often a very complex interaction with local customs and local crops around which some form of cultivation already existed.

Also interesting are the changed views on the consequences of sedentarisation and agriculture on social relations. The Western focus, based on what could be established in South-West Asia, has long used a hierarchical model: scientists were apparently under the influence of an anti-urbanist tradition in Western culture, in which the formation of towns and cities seemed inevitable to go along with elite formation; the discovery of what appeared to be the remains of temples and palaces seemed to support the strict hierarchical model, even at the earliest stage of the Neolithic. Researchers are increasingly moving away from this and thinking that more or less egalitarian forms of cooperation, between core families as well as extended families, remained the norm for at least thousands of years, and that these ruins were just communal spaces (often with a ritual function like in annual festivals).

In short, the contributions in this book may present a disparate picture of the transition to agriculture and sedentarisation, but they certainly add many new insights into a constantly evolving science.
(see also my general review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second part of this World History, with the focus on the transition to agricultural and sedentary societies (roughly from 10,000 BCE to 1,000 CE). It contains 7 thematic approaches, followed by articles on a specific region, combined with an exploration of a concrete archaeological site from that region. In that sense this really gives a broad picture, although strangely enough Australia is missing. The book rightly opens with the revolutionary insights generated by the recent archaeo-genetic research, and also highlights the controversy over its interpretation. As in volume 1 I noticed that in the articles different dating methods are used: most authors stick to the BCE (before common era) dating, a few to BP (before present), which of course can be slightly confusing. Some of the regional overviews are rather tough to read because the authors limit themselves to a dry enumeration of archaeological finds, without too much synthesis. In my discussion in my History account, I go into some substantive aspects in more detail: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Wing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to the first volume, this instalment starts by explaining methodologies such as archaeogenetics, linguistic reconstruction, and bioarchaeology. These are followed by a handful of chapters on some major themes of the period covered. Later chapters on individual continents are enhanced by specific case studies. Representative sites of fundamental importance are chosen for illustrations. It is apparent that the complexity of the emergence of agriculture defies any unifying narratives in broad brushstrokes. Rather, trajectories of different regions depend on climate, contingencies, and chance. They are not linear and all narratives should not be constrained or distorted by artefactual preconceptions. Generalisations should be eschewed. The reasons for the emergence of agriculture are not as clear as various ideologies like to presume. Its consequences also vary. As alluded to earlier, the point of serious archaeological and historical analysis is to scrutinise preexisting concepts which often turn out to be misconceptions or dubious assumptions. I think the book has achieved this very well. Its many technical details also cover the caveats sufficiently too. Four stars.

[Joshua Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

When reviewing a book like this, it has to be reviewed for what it is - a survey of historical/archeaological topics covering an extremely broad range of time and across virtually the entire inhabited world. As a result, when I give this a 3/5 it is an attempt to balance comprehensiveness of subject with the interest level of reading the text. While I think this is a serviceable volume in both respects, it's hard to give it more than a 3 because many of the chapters are quite dry and technical. I can't really penalize it for that, however - it is essentially a survey of archeaological techniques designed to provide some insight into pre-history and the development of agriculture. It's not going to be a barnburner. Generally, I think the mix of subjects and locations is about right for such an amitious survey of the subject, and the entries (based on my ability to judge, which is admittedly limited) seem to be of high quality. Would I recommend reading this? Not unless you're exceptionally interested in agricultural history and/or archaeology, or are obsessed with completing odd reading projects like I am. Nonetheless, for what this book aims to be it seems to accomplish its task, and less than 3 stars would be awfully harsh.

[Emmanuel-francis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it much less interesting than the previous volume. In fairness, that likely has more to do with my lack of interest in the period. The book did not change my assumption that the era was boring--agriculture is great and all, but I can't wait for the invention of writing to come spice up the narrative, and save my brain from the dreariness of excavations. Speaking of which, while I understand the importance to World History of "interdisciplinarity", I fervently hope the next volume has less archaeology. There is a reason even economics is a more popular subject to the public.

Might be the expectation of finishing, but I found the final chapter on the excavations in Poland particularly interesting. It, in addition to the chapter on Pastoralism, were the standouts in the book.

On a more positive note, the constant enlightenment on the centrality of long-distance connections to human history is something I am grateful to the project for.

[Ramachandran CHEENIYIL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly not an easy read, but it was a good transition from the previous volume to the next one.