EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia

Download or read book The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia written by Charles W. Hartley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together archaeological investigations of Eurasian regimes and revolutions ranging from the Bronze Age to the modern day.

Book The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia

Download or read book The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia written by Charles W. Hartley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For thousands of years, the geography of Eurasia has facilitated travel, conquest and colonization by various groups, from the Huns in ancient times to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the past century. This book brings together archaeological investigations of Eurasian regimes and revolutions ranging from the Bronze Age to the modern day, from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in the west to the Mongolian steppe and the Korean Peninsula in the east. The authors examine a wide-ranging series of archaeological studies in order to better understand the role of politics in the history and prehistory of the region. This book re-evaluates the significance of power, authority and ideology in the emergence and transformation of ancient and modern societies in this vast continent.

Book Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics  Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology

Download or read book Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics re-examines the relationship between Eurasia’s past and its present by interrogating the social construction of time and the archaeological production of culture. Traditionally, archaeological research in Eurasia has focused on assembling normative descriptions of monolithic cultures that endure for millennia, largely immune to the forces of historical change. The papers in this volume seek to document forces of difference and contestation in the past that were produced in the perceptible engagements of peoples, things, and places. The research gathered here convincingly demonstrates that these forces made social life in ancient Eurasia rather more fitful and its publics considerably more unruly than archaeological research has traditionally allowed. Contributors are Mikheil Abramishvili, Paula N. Doumani Dupuy, Magnus Fiskesjö, Hilary Gopnik, Emma Hite, Jean-Luc Houle, Erik G. Johannesson, James A. Johnson, Lori Khatchadourian, Ian Lindsay, Maureen E. Marshall, Mitchell S. Rothman, Irina Shingiray, Adam T. Smith, Kathryn O. Weber and Xin Wu.

Book Eurasia at the Dawn of History

Download or read book Eurasia at the Dawn of History written by Manuel Fernández-Götz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our current world is characterized by life in cities, the existence of social inequalities, and increasing individualization. When and how did these phenomena arise? What was the social and economic background for the development of hierarchies and the first cities? The authors of this volume analyze the processes of centralization, cultural interaction, and social differentiation that led to the development of the first urban centres and early state formations of ancient Eurasia, from the Atlantic coasts to China. The chronological framework spans a period from the Neolithic to the Late Iron Age, with a special focus on the early first millennium BC. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach structured around the concepts of identity and materiality, this book addresses the appearance of a range of key phenomena that continue to shape our world.

Book Heritage Statecraft and Corporate Power

Download or read book Heritage Statecraft and Corporate Power written by Gertjan Plets and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-13 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heritage Statecraft and Corporate Power examines the politicization of heritage and heritage conflicts in Siberia. In so doing, it challenges the idea that heritage is created by the state and instead argues that heritage creates the state. Building upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in south-central Eurasia, this book provides an analysis of the sociopolitical enmeshment of archaeology and heritage in Russia’s resource colony: Siberia. Although many examples from across Siberia are discussed, the core study region for the book is the Altai Republic, which is located where Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and China intersect. Taking a “heritage statecraft” approach, Plets argues that heritage is a particularly important political instrument in this region. The book considers how different social “groups”—including indigenous communities, Russian settlers, displaced groups, national and international archaeologists, political parties, and energy companies—translate archaeological data into culturally distinct heritages. Plets encourages scrutiny of the different players that mobilize heritage to instill norms and ideas and the ways in which new regulations or institutions are ultimately implemented. Heritage Statecraft and Corporate Power contributes to key debates around the politics of archaeology, resource development, and cultural heritage. It will be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of heritage, archaeology, and memory.

Book The Archaeology of the Caucasus

Download or read book The Archaeology of the Caucasus written by Antonio Sagona and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.

Book A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes

Download or read book A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes written by David W. Anthony and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900-1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures (1900-1200 BC). Three astonishing discoveries were made by the SVP archaeologists: agriculture played no role in the LBA diet across the region, a surprise given the settled residential pattern; a unique winter ritual was practiced at Krasnosamarskoe involving dog and wolf sacrifices, possibly related to male initiation ceremonies; and overlapping spheres of obligation, cooperation, and affiliation operated at different scales to integrate groups defined by politics, economics, and ritual behaviors.

Book Rethinking Prehistoric Central Asia

Download or read book Rethinking Prehistoric Central Asia written by Claudia Chang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-16 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The peoples of Inner Asia in the second half of the first millennium BC have long been considered to be nomads, engaging in warfare and conflict. This book, which presents the findings of new archaeological research in southeastern Kazakhstan, analyzes these findings to present important conclusions about the nature of Inner Asian society in this period. Pots, animal bones, ancient plant remains, and mudbricks are details from the material record proving that the ancient folk cultivated wheat, barley, and the two millets, and also husbanded sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. The picture presented is of societies which were more complex than heretofore understood: with an economic foundation based on both herding and farming, producing surplus agricultural goods which were exported, and with a hierarchical social structure, including elites and commoners, made cohesive by gift-giving, feasting, and tribute, rather than conflict and warfare. The book includes material on the impact of the first opening of the Silk Route by the Han emperors of China.

Book Ancient States and Infrastructural Power

Download or read book Ancient States and Infrastructural Power written by Clifford Ando and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient States and Infrastructural Power examines how early states built their territorial, legal, and political powers before they had the capacity to enforce them. Contributors trace how state power first developed from the Andes to China, from Babylon to Rome.

Book Nairi Lands

    Book Details:
  • Author : Guido Guarducci
  • Publisher : Oxbow Books
  • Release : 2019-12-19
  • ISBN : 1789252814
  • Pages : 273 pages

Download or read book Nairi Lands written by Guido Guarducci and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2019-12-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the pottery production and the architecture, and the social structure of the local communities of a broad area encompassing Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus and North-western Iran during the last phase of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. This broad area is known from the Assyrian texts as ‘Nairi lands’. The second part of the study, furnishes a reassessment of pottery production characteristics and theories, as well as of the socio-economic structure and issues, tied to the sedentary and mobile local communities of the Nairi lands. The study brings into focus the characteristics, the extension and the distribution of Grooved pottery, along with other pottery typologies, by providing an accompanying online catalogue with detailed descriptions and high-resolution images of the pots and sherds obtained from public and private institutions in Turkey and Armenia. Moreover, the socio-political organisation and subsistence economy issues are addressed in order to advance a possible reconstruction of the social structure of the Nairi lands communities. Particular attention is devoted to the pastoral nomad component and the role played within the Nairi phenomenon. The study includes a very large corpus of text images and high-resolution color images of the pottery of the area under examination, gathered by the author in order to offer a reliable tool and compendium.

Book Nationalism  Politics and the Practice of Archaeology

Download or read book Nationalism Politics and the Practice of Archaeology written by Philip L. Kohl and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology has often been put to political use, particularly by nationalists. The case studies in this timely collection range from the propaganda purposes served by archaeology in the Nazi state, through the complex interplay of official dogma and academic prehistory in the former Soviet Union, to lesser-known instances of ideological archaeology in other European countries, in China, Japan, Korea and the Near East. The introductory and concluding chapters draw out some of the common threads in these experiences, and argue that archaeologists need to be more sophisticated about the use and abuse of their studies. The editors have brought together a distinguished international group of scholars. Whilst archaeologists will find that this book raises cogent questions about their own work, these problems also go beyond archaeology to implicate history and anthropology more generally.

Book The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History

Download or read book The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History written by Thomas T. Allsen and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-06-03 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From antiquity to the nineteenth century, the royal hunt was a vital component of the political cultures of the Middle East, India, Central Asia, and China. Besides marking elite status, royal hunts functioned as inspection tours and imperial progresses, a means of asserting kingly authority over the countryside. The hunt was, in fact, the "court out-of-doors," an open-air theater for displays of majesty, the entertainment of guests, and the bestowal of favor on subjects. In the conduct of interstate relations, great hunts were used to train armies, show the flag, and send diplomatic signals. Wars sometimes began as hunts and ended as celebratory chases. Often understood as a kind of covert military training, the royal hunt was subject to the same strict discipline as that applied in war and was also a source of innovation in military organization and tactics. Just as human subjects were to recognize royal power, so was the natural kingdom brought within the power structure by means of the royal hunt. Hunting parks were centers of botanical exchange, military depots, early conservation reserves, and important links in local ecologies. The mastery of the king over nature served an important purpose in official renderings: as a manifestation of his possession of heavenly good fortune he could tame the natural world and keep his kingdom safe from marauding threats, human or animal. The exchanges of hunting partners—cheetahs, elephants, and even birds—became diplomatic tools as well as serving to create an elite hunting culture that transcended political allegiances and ecological frontiers. This sweeping comparative work ranges from ancient Egypt to India under the Raj. With a magisterial command of contemporary sources, literature, material culture, and archaeology, Thomas T. Allsen chronicles the vast range of traditions surrounding this fabled royal occupation.

Book The Political Machine

    Book Details:
  • Author : Adam T. Smith
  • Publisher : Princeton University Press
  • Release : 2020-08-04
  • ISBN : 0691211485
  • Pages : 260 pages

Download or read book The Political Machine written by Adam T. Smith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today. Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule. From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.

Book Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Download or read book Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages written by Hyun Jin Kim and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparative and interdisciplinary study of ancient and medieval Eurasian empires using historical, philological and archaeological evidence.

Book Archaeology as Political Action

Download or read book Archaeology as Political Action written by Randall H. McGuire and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-04-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It is rare to read an archaeological book that has the capacity to inspire, as this one has.”—Mark P. Leone, author of The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital “Archaeology as Political Action is a highly original work that will be important for archaeologists and others concerned with processes of social change in the world today and, more importantly, with making a difference.”—Thomas C. Patterson, coeditor of Foundations of Social Archaeology “This powerful statement by a leading archaeological thinker has profound implications for rigorous archaeological interpretation, community collaboration, and political intervention.”—Stephen W. Silliman, coeditor of Historical Archaeology

Book The Golden Deer of Eurasia

Download or read book The Golden Deer of Eurasia written by Joan Aruz and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2006 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia

Download or read book Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia written by Bryan K. Hanks and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-31 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges current interpretations of social and cultural change in prehistoric Eurasia, through a thematic investigation of archaeological patterns.