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Breakout: The Origins of Civilization (review)

Breakout: The Origins of Civilization (review) Book Reviews Breakout: The Origins of Civilization. Edited by martha lamberg-karlovsky. Peabody Museum Monographs, 9. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 2000. xx + 131 pp. $25.00 (paper). This book is a collection of articles on the origins of civilizations, beginning with a remarkable article by the American-Chinese archae- ologist K. C. Chang (1931–2001). In 1983 he had published a small book, Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China, in which he described the origin of civilization in China as the rise of political authority and explained this rise in terms that were almost purely nonmaterial. In the Bronze Age of China (perhaps 2200 –500 b.c.) the two great technological advances, bronze and writ- ing, were insignificant for the economy and served only to support the ideological underpinnings of political authority. Agriculture remained essentially Neolithic, and writing was used for purposes related to reli- gion and politics rather than production and economics. Stated in this bald way, Chang’s thesis is difficult to accept—bronze weaponry must have been important, the question of bronze implements has still not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and we cannot know what sort of things might http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of World History University of Hawai'I Press

Breakout: The Origins of Civilization (review)

Journal of World History , Volume 14 (4) – Dec 10, 2003

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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-8050

Abstract

Book Reviews Breakout: The Origins of Civilization. Edited by martha lamberg-karlovsky. Peabody Museum Monographs, 9. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 2000. xx + 131 pp. $25.00 (paper). This book is a collection of articles on the origins of civilizations, beginning with a remarkable article by the American-Chinese archae- ologist K. C. Chang (1931–2001). In 1983 he had published a small book, Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China, in which he described the origin of civilization in China as the rise of political authority and explained this rise in terms that were almost purely nonmaterial. In the Bronze Age of China (perhaps 2200 –500 b.c.) the two great technological advances, bronze and writ- ing, were insignificant for the economy and served only to support the ideological underpinnings of political authority. Agriculture remained essentially Neolithic, and writing was used for purposes related to reli- gion and politics rather than production and economics. Stated in this bald way, Chang’s thesis is difficult to accept—bronze weaponry must have been important, the question of bronze implements has still not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and we cannot know what sort of things might

Journal

Journal of World HistoryUniversity of Hawai'I Press

Published: Dec 10, 2003

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