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Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New
by Peter Watson
Peter Watson, the acclaimed author of Ideas and The German Genius, offers a groundbreaking new exploration of the progress of human history. Watson's The Great Divide compares and contrasts the development of humankind between the "Old World" and the "New" - between 15,000 B.C. and 1,500 A.D - and, like Jarod Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, Watson's remarkable book offers a fascinating, all-encompassing, highly readable overview of how human civilization has grown and expanded.
Combining the most up-to-date findings in archaeology, anthropology, geology, meteorology, cosmology and mythology, this unprecedented, masterful study offers uniquely revealing insights into what it means to be human.
"Inevitably, some of his speculations feel forced... Still, like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, his grand-scale history contains fascinating insights at every turn." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Watson makes a fascinating case that while there may be a single human nature, long exposure to dissimilar landscapes, food, animals and climate created two unique approaches to this nature." - Kirkus Reviews
"...Impossible, of course, to summarise this massive book in a small review. Sufficient, perhaps, to say that the year's first necessary read is here." - Christopher Bray, Word Magazine
"In drawing together evidence from complex strands of archaeology, climatology, genetics and religious symbolism, Watson is compulsively speculative." - Peter Forbes, The Independent (UK)
This information about The Great Divide was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Watson has written for the New York Times, The Observer, The Spectator, and numerous other publications. He is the author of Ideas, War on the Mind, Wisdom and Strength, The Caravaggio Conspiracy, and other books. He lives in London.
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