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The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
- How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
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1177 B.C.
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- Written by: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.
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Just a bit anticlimactic
- By Stephen V on 2021-12-02
Written by: Eric H. Cline
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The Ancient Celts, Second Edition
- Written by: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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For 2,500 years, the Celts have continued to fascinate those who have come into contact with them, yet their origins have remained a mystery and even today are the subject of heated debate among historians and archaeologists. Barry Cunliffe's classic study of the ancient Celtic world was first published in 1997. Since then, huge advances have taken place in our knowledge: new finds, new ways of using DNA records to understand Celtic origins, new ideas about the proto-urban nature of early chieftains' strongholds. All these developments are part of this fully updated edition.
Written by: Barry Cunliffe
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1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- Written by: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
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Great history exploration
- By Robert F. Brookfield on 2021-07-10
Written by: Eric H. Cline
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The Scythians
- Nomad Warriors of the Steppe
- Written by: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
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Scythian History- A Tribe of the Asian Steppes
- By Grantie on 2021-04-01
Written by: Barry Cunliffe
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Children of Ash and Elm
- A History of the Vikings
- Written by: Neil Price
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.
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An engaging written history of the Vikings...
- By Anonymous User on 2021-01-10
Written by: Neil Price
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- Written by: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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This needs to be mandatory reading!
- By nicolethebumblebee on 2019-03-07
Written by: Charles C. Mann
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1177 B.C.
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- Written by: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.
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Just a bit anticlimactic
- By Stephen V on 2021-12-02
Written by: Eric H. Cline
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The Ancient Celts, Second Edition
- Written by: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 2,500 years, the Celts have continued to fascinate those who have come into contact with them, yet their origins have remained a mystery and even today are the subject of heated debate among historians and archaeologists. Barry Cunliffe's classic study of the ancient Celtic world was first published in 1997. Since then, huge advances have taken place in our knowledge: new finds, new ways of using DNA records to understand Celtic origins, new ideas about the proto-urban nature of early chieftains' strongholds. All these developments are part of this fully updated edition.
Written by: Barry Cunliffe
-
1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- Written by: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
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Great history exploration
- By Robert F. Brookfield on 2021-07-10
Written by: Eric H. Cline
-
The Scythians
- Nomad Warriors of the Steppe
- Written by: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
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Scythian History- A Tribe of the Asian Steppes
- By Grantie on 2021-04-01
Written by: Barry Cunliffe
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Children of Ash and Elm
- A History of the Vikings
- Written by: Neil Price
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.
-
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An engaging written history of the Vikings...
- By Anonymous User on 2021-01-10
Written by: Neil Price
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- Written by: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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This needs to be mandatory reading!
- By nicolethebumblebee on 2019-03-07
Written by: Charles C. Mann
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The Language Instinct
- How the Mind Creates Language
- Written by: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....
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Fantastic! ...but not as an audiobook.
- By Alexandre L'Écuyer on 2019-06-26
Written by: Steven Pinker
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Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia
- Written by: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies—vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of European empire. David Graeber explores how the proto-democratic, even libertarian practices of the Zana-Malata—an ethnic group made up of mixed descendants of pirates who settled on Madagascar at the beginning of the eighteenth century—came to shape the Enlightenment project.
Written by: David Graeber
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Babylon
- Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
- Written by: Paul Kriwaczek
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Civilization was born 8,000 years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period.
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A good introduction to the history of Mesopotamia
- By Mauro on 2019-09-19
Written by: Paul Kriwaczek
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Written by: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
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Good content; terrible narrator
- By Daly Close on 2020-01-30
Written by: Tony Judt
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Ancestral Journeys
- The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (Revised and Updated Edition)
- Written by: Jean Manco
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe's past. The story is more complex than at first believed, with new evidence suggesting that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously multiple times. Genetic clues are also enhancing our understanding of European mobility in epochs with written records, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the spread of the Slavs, and the adventures of the Vikings.
Written by: Jean Manco
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The English and Their History
- Written by: Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 43 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Tombs' momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.
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Really great!
- By Cedric on 2020-01-12
Written by: Robert Tombs
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The World Before Us
- How Science Is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins
- Written by: Tom Higham
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty thousand years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter's ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements.
Written by: Tom Higham
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The Pagan World
- Ancient Religions Before Christianity
- Written by: Hans-Friedrich Mueller, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Hans-Friedrich Mueller
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Original Recording
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In The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity, you will meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their many gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to appreciate the foundational role religion played in their lives. Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller, of Union College in Schenectady, New York, makes this ancient world come alive in 24 lectures with captivating stories of intrigue, artifacts, illustrations, and detailed descriptions from primary sources of intriguing personalities.
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armchair historian
- By Mark F Sperring on 2020-06-30
Written by: Hans-Friedrich Mueller, and others
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A Short History of Humanity
- A New History of Old Europe
- Written by: Johannes Krause, Thomas Trappe, Caroline Waight - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics - archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology - which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time. In this surprising account, Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe rewrite a fascinating chapter of this history, the peopling of Europe, that takes us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans to the present.
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archeogenetics changes everything
- By Jesse Bongfeldt on 2022-11-10
Written by: Johannes Krause, and others
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Millennium
- The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 17 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Millennium is a stunning panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000. This was the age of Canute, William the Conqueror and Pope Gregory VII, of Vikings, monks and serfs, of the earliest castles and the invention of knighthood, and of the primal conflict between church and state. The story of how the distinctive culture of Europe - restless, creative and dynamic - was forged from out of the convulsions of these extraordinary times is as fascinating and as momentous as any in history.
Written by: Tom Holland
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back
- The Evolution of Minds
- Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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What is human consciousness, and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture.
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Very good presentation of this concept
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-03-24
Written by: Daniel C. Dennett
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The Silk Roads
- A New History of the World
- Written by: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy
- Length: 24 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century - this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.
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Epic Telling of History
- By chris bahrey on 2021-11-22
Written by: Peter Frankopan
Publisher's Summary
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe?
Until now, their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.
Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David W. Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of Central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange.
He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding.
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries - the source of the Indo-European languages and English - and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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What listeners say about The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gilbert Primeau
- 2019-03-04
Good book, slow, monotonous narration
Just didn’t care for the narrator’s style or pacing, too slow and monotone, especially for some of the drier sections of the text. I’m sure he’s a very nice person, and he does a good job pronouncing a challenging range of non-English words, but it just sounded a little robotic to me.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sandeep Mehta
- 2023-10-01
Very technical - heavily focused on archaeology
Don't expect a narrative based progression. This book is more like a review of the archaeological record - focused on steppe peoples. Which means it can feel overly technical. There are great moments of enlightenment...but you're going to have to tolerate a lot of jargon, site-codes, and geographic references to get them. Contrary to another review, I thought the narrator was very clear and easy to follow. It's just that the material isn't suited to the story-telling most casual listeners are seeking.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2022-09-27
Really solid material
The ability of the author to draw together fields without getting lost is refreshing. It also is engaging at the same time which only makes it a stronger contribution to our collective understanding of our past.
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- Anthony
- 2019-08-09
Excellent
I have had this book at home for several years and did not finish reading it because it is hard to find the time to sit and read. Audiobooks provide a wonderful alternative and I was able to listen/read this excellent book in just a few days.
Please, audible, record more academic books like this one. It makes all the difference to people who want to read serious, non-fiction, archaeology, linguistics, science-related books written by scholars. Unfortunately books of this caliber dealing with a more unique subject are relatively rare here. I usually have to wade through the standard popular subjects and the books written about ancient aliens. For those who find David W. Anthony's writing to be too academic, that is the point. He is presenting academic research. I can't imagine why someone would purchase the book if they wanted a cursory overview of the subject. There is plenty of light weight and popular history on this site from which to choose. Although I did not need the pdf because I already own the book, it covered all the technical information described in the pages dealing with charts.
This subject is all the more fascinating in light of the genetic research that has been revealed since its publication. I recommend further researching his writings online as well as those of David Reich.
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74 people found this helpful
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- L. Green
- 2019-02-10
Fascinating Stuff, and then...Pots of the Steppes
After some fascinating insights about PIE, the Indo-European languages, and even methodological issues and divides, the book *really* bogs down into comparisons of pots, grave sites, figurines, pots, a few more pots, skeletons, and another eight splashes of pots.
The author is an archaeologist, and that eventually shows. The last third or so of the book seems to reveal that his real interest is in the physical remnants of steppe culture, not their language or its influence. He revels in the artifacts, not really letting non-specialist the reader in on the secret (all that often) of why this vast array of detail is all that relevant to PIE except in broad strokes that he already expressed much earlier. Admittedly, there may be some final chapters left that reintegrate linguistic elements, but I’ve been on the steppes of his pottery and pit grave talk for about 5 hours and I’m not sure I’ll see Zion.
The book is honestly worth it for the first 40% if you’re interested in the root of European languages, hence the 4 stars. Just...be prepared.
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52 people found this helpful
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- rvr-rnr
- 2019-10-16
Great Narrator, Great Content, Wrong Format
This really needs to be read in print. It's fascinating, but academic enough to feel like taking notes/annotating and being able to flip back and forth between pages is necessary to follow the argument he's piecing together. I wound up downloading the ebook about halfway through and using it along with the audiobook.
Narrator is great
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28 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 2019-01-07
Good but Dense and Variable and Monotonous
I am dubious about histories of never written languages (as there is a lot of guessing involved) and this is no exception. The arguments are strong, but questionable and unverifiable and seem of questionable practical value.
This book is not mostly about this scholastic language debate. Instead it also looks at the history of the wheel and horses in civilizations.
There is a 33 page PDF associated with the book which is much better than hearing the tables read aloud!
It is mostly too-much-information, except for the appendix regarding some of the issues with carbon dating techniques.
This archaeology is interesting, but dense, and alternates between popularly conversational and dense, abbreviation filled, academic text.
The narration is clear and audio is good, but monotonous (mostly due to the writing).
I definitely read this to the end, and I did learn a few things, but I can't say I enjoyed it a lot.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Joseph Duke
- 2020-01-03
Beating a Ceramic Dead Horse
Starts off tolerably well but soon turns into what could be considered an interminable doctoral dissertation rather than an approachable account of how civilization developed in a largely overlooked part of the world. It takes a lot of effort to take such an interesting subject and make it excruciatingly boring, but the author does just that by deluging the reader with mind-numbing statistics regarding pottery types and other archaeological minutia that would best confined to a PDF appendix. The book literally runs into the ground about a third of the way in and never recovers. I feel sorry for the narrator.
Overall, the writing style is sterile and academic, to the point of the author referring to his archaeologist spouse by last name (for some reason this irked me). A more personal approach and some judicious pruning of the data would have bumped this title up at least a couple stars.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Evan
- 2019-05-08
great book!
very well researched. I wanted maps in the PDF. besides the lack of maps it was great.
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15 people found this helpful
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- ebeth
- 2020-11-03
The most boring book I ever tried to read
Even though I am a retired language teacher and some interest in linguistics, this book defeats me. It is so boring that I have not been able to finish reading it even though I have tried three times. It starts out well, but then bogs down in Proto-Indo-European linguistics at such great length that I couldn't stand it any more.
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11 people found this helpful
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- William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and camptalized M)
- 2018-12-17
Origins of Indo-European daughter languages
Narration: Enunciation clear but unvarying, monotonous rhythm is not much fun and impedes comprehension.
Content: Detailed--actually, turgid--explanations of how Indo-European root languages constitute the foundation from which modern European and central Asian languages emerged.
This information is certainly important to serious students of linguistics and archaeology. Laypersons, however, need more accessible explanations--less jargon, less meticulous detail, more concrete examples, and simpler explanations.
Potentially profitable for serious language theorists. All others directed to Teaching Company language collections, which cover much of the same material, but which are more accessible to laypersons.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous 626
- 2019-04-10
Magnificent book
This book intertwines archeology & linguistics with an exceptionally detailed an compelling description of the origins of info-European language. At times the pace seems tedious, but the rationale and crescendo of evidence that ties everything together at the end makes this story compelling & irrefutable.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Trebla
- 2018-10-01
A text book, not genteel history
I was hoping for an understandable progressive history of the that area called the Steppe. The detail of sound progressions, anthropology of tine villages and an astounding medley of minutia made it beyond understanding. he man is clearly bright & deeply involved, but the immensity of detail buried the message.
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6 people found this helpful
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- indigotyger
- 2020-04-04
A PHD ... not a story!
This little known theme had the potential to be a riveting explication of human developmental origins. However, it is presented as a doctoral research thesis and heavily encumbered with statistical evidence. What should have been an exciting and revelatory story is lost in a tangle of data!
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