Civilizations

This enormous project is based on the premise that civilisations are the product of their environment. With that Fernandez-Armesto looks at cultures of the desert, the tundra and ice, then to the more obvious civilisations of alluvial flood plains, the highlands, maritime civilisations and finally civilisations of travel, migration and expansion. This is a work of massive cross referencing juxtaposing the maritime civilisations of Japan and Northern Africa or the mountain civilisations of New Guinea and Tibet. The effect is to suggest that civilisation can happen anywhere - that no one environment is uniquely conducive, or that no one race or people are more productive than another.