PEABODY MUSEUM MONOGRAPHS
Cover: The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization, from Harvard University PressCover: The Breakout in PAPERBACK

Peabody Museum Monographs 9

The Breakout

The Origins of Civilization

Product Details

PAPERBACK

$25.00 • £21.95 • €22.95

ISBN 9780873659109

Publication Date: 05/25/2000

Short

152 pages

7 x 10 inches

12 halftones, 18 line illustrations, 4 maps

Peabody Museum Press > Peabody Museum Monographs

World, subsidiary rights restricted

Add to Cart

Media Requests:

Related Subjects

For much of the twentieth century, Mesopotamia was thought to he the singular “Cradle of Civilization,” and the agents of change that brought it about were thought to be demographic, ecological, and technological. Bronze Age Mesopotamian accomplishments were believed to have diffused outward, influencing the development of civilization in the rest of the world. Part of this Mesopocentric view was revised as archaeological evidence revealed that other unique civilizations had existed in both the Old and New Worlds, but the traditional Near Eastern pattern of development continued to serve as a model.

In the mid-1980s, however, Harvard’s Kwang-chih Chang proposed in Symbols—a publication of Harvard’s Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology—that China’s first civilization did not evolve according to the conventional Mesopotamian model and argued instead for a new paradigm for understanding the origins of civilization in ancient China and the New World.

In this collection of subsequent Symbols articles and other essays, Maya and Near Eastern studies specialists engage in a stimulating debate of Chang’s thesis, also presented here.

Recent News

Black lives matter. Black voices matter. A statement from HUP »

From Our Blog

Jacket: Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, by Peter Wilson, from Harvard University Press

A Lesson in German Military History with Peter Wilson

In his landmark book Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, acclaimed historian Peter H. Wilson offers a masterful reappraisal of German militarism and warfighting over the last five centuries, leading to the rise of Prussia and the world wars. Below, Wilson answers our questions about this complex history,