Overview
Argues that existing textbooks and relevant monographs on anthropology and history have presented incomplete and sometimes misleading descriptions of how mankind has advanced from the hunter-gatherer society to more complicated cultures
Suggests that favorable environmental and external factors may become disincentives (whereas unfavorable environmental and external factors may become incentives) for humans to advance cultural development
Concludes that it was cyclical natural disasters (or, more precisely, seasonable river floods) – not other natural factors or disasters – that gave birth to the earliest great civilizations
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book provides many neglected but still crucial environmental and biological clues about the rise and fall of civilizations – ones that have largely resulted from mankind’s long-lasting “Win-Stay Lose-Shift” games throughout the world. The narratives and findings presented at this book are unexpected but reasonable – and are what every student of anthropology or history needs to know and doesn't get in the usual text.
“Professor Guo explores the dynamics of civilizations from the beginnings to our perplexingly complex world. There are lots of thought-provoking ideas here on the rise and decline of civilizations and nations... Anyone wishing to understand global developments should give this book serious consideration.”
----John Komlos, University of Munich, Germany, and Duke University, USA
“It is interesting to see a Chinese perspective on the questions of deep history that have engaged Jared Diamond, Yuval Harari and David Christian. Guo argues that understanding cyclical threats has been the key to human progress, which is driven by the dialectic of material privation and human ingenuity.”
----Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, USA
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Human-Earth System Dynamics
Book Subtitle: Implications to Civilizations
Authors: Rongxing Guo
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0547-4
Publisher: Springer Singapore
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-0546-7Published: 30 May 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4447-3Published: 16 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-0547-4Published: 16 May 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 199
Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations
Topics: Human Geography, World History, Global and Transnational History, Historiography and Method