By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia provides a solid survey of ancient history from the interesting perspective of steppe nomad interactions with sedentary cultures. I am almost halfway through reading this book. I will have more to add when I finish.However, I want to present a few errors that I have spotted.p. 204 paragraph 3 Fars province is listed as southwest of Elam. It should be listed as southeast.p. 206 illustration 6-1 says Persian King Cyrus was captured at Babylon in 539 BC. As King Cyrus was victorious in taking Babylon at that time it does not make sense to say he was captured.p.209 says "When Cyrus sent the exiled Jews back to their homeland, he encouraged them to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, an act that prompted the prophet Isaiah to proclaim Cyrus was favored by their god, Yahweh." Isaiah was an 8th Century prophet of Israel. It would be more proper to say that the writer of 3rd Isaiah proclaimed Cyrus was favored by their god, Yahweh.

Very, very interesting book. I think Mr. Cunliffe has done an amazingly good job here, presenting just enough archaeological and historical fact and supporting it adequately for an interested layman. To me, Central Asia and its connection to East and West was an empty space interspersed with question marks. After this book, the space is filled with peoples and events, though the questions marks seem to have multiplied!The book is intended to be educational as well as interesting. Chapters are introduced, presented, and summarized: for someone who wants to retain some of what he's read, this book is a wonderful gift. One of the very few books I've seen that has enough maps to keep me oriented. And enough photos to give a feel for the high level of art/artisanship of bronze age craftsmen, to pique one's interest.. I can't praise the author enough for his careful selection of maps and photos, it is a very strong feature of this book. There is the occasional confusion of "east" with "west" in the text, but if you follow the maps, they'll not confuse you.Aimed at general audiences, I hazard a guess that this book will interest specialists as well. I know I'll read it more than once, and will try to investigate some of Mr. Cunliffe's recommended readings.I'm sure Mr. Cunliffe is Dr. Cunliffe, but I'm unable to find this stated in the book or the cover paper.. I've used Mr. in my review, trying to respect his example.

Cunliffe's earlier "Between Two Oceans" was a totally mind-blowing experience, elegantly written, fluent, a true reading adventure. Thanks to it, I've incorporated much more pre-history and archaeology into my reading agenda. His "Scythians," by contrast, was a rather academic exercise, and I read it with more than an occasional yawn. "By Steppe..." combines overarching historical exploration with an occasional dead slow pace and TMI, and is a useful but not always gripping read. Its major shortcomings, in my view, are two. The first is one Cunliffe explicitly cops to, an unwillingness to address linguistic questions, such as, for example, the spread of Indo-European languages. A second, related, flaw is the vagueness with which he addresses the period of IE arrival in Europe, which I understand to have been about 4,500 years ago. How did IEs spread throughout Europe, by what means (invasion or cultural dominance); how did the various IE linguistic groups consolidate or separate, and to what extent did they absorb or adapt to existing populations. Perhaps answers to these questions may exist in other works, but for an amateur historian myself new to the reading of pre-history, it seems that a work apparently intending to be exhaustive should include at least suggestions of answers to these questions. Still, well worth a read though it requires some time and work.

Cunliffe’s history of Eurasia is stunning in most every way. Here is the story of Eurasia’s development along a parallel timeline from East to West. The places in between the otherwise well-known East and West is the vast expanse of the collective ex-Soviet ‘x-stans’, steppes and southern Siberia is larger than the typical West and East of written history. The ancient peoples and cultural complexes of these domains ‘in between’ demand exploration beyond the scope of the book and it’s here that you will find the very latest research from Kindle’s on line linkage.The Kindle format with the links to the internet convert this read into a deep study. I’m convinced. Kindle editions in history and technology are far superior to the printed book.

I am torn by the star rating for this book. For the early sections, written on the basis of archaeological knowledge from which Cunliffe draws an erudite and highly readable story, and the closing part, where he takes a big step back and tries to see overarching patterns, it is excellent and, if it were possible I would give it six out of five stars. For the intervening parts, seemingly drawn predominantly from written histories he is less inspiring and, perhaps because of the huge span that this work encompasses, the condensing of details can at time be confusing. Deciding what should be left out of a work of this gigantic scope must be difficult and , no doubt, all readers will have their own regretted omissions; one of mine was that he did not mention, in an otherwise nice summary, Mongol failures against Burma/Myanmar and Japan. However, this is still a good book which may leave readers looking at the world in a slightly different way.

I found this book very informative.

Takes the imagination to far flung places & times

Absolutely awesome, an unusual point of view about the whole eurasian history, moving the usual center of human development from South Europe to the whole continent, linking all the people living there. Is a book that makes you grow...Sorry it would never be translated in Italian, as usual...E' certamente un libro di storia fuori dal comune, come altri di questo autore che ha una grande esperienza archeologica sul campo e una vasta conoscenza della storia dell intero continente euroasiatico, cosa piuttosto rara. Ha realizzato una storia globale dell uomo collegando tra loro le grandi storie dell Occidente che ormai conosciamo a quelle non meno grandi di altri popoli che conosciamo assai di meno (Cina, Siberia, India, estremo oriente e oltre) ma soprattutto alle cause prime che generano la storia, ossia la geologia, il clima e gli spostamenti delle popolazioni.Difficile che sia mai tradotta in italiano, ma la consiglio vivamente, è una di quelle opere che cambiano la percezione della storia nel suo complesso...

Excellent

Up to now the best available description and summary of mankinds history from Manchuria to Central Europe over more than 10.000 years, highlighting the main milestones of cultural progress and carving out their in between-connections based on trade or war originated in Eurasias belt of steppe, desert or joining waterways.