It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in t...

Why read non-fiction? Is it just to find things out? Or is it for pleasure, challenge, adventure, meaning? Here, in seventy new pieces, some of the most original writers and thinkers of our time give their answers.From Hilton Als on reading as writing's dearest companion to Nicci Gerrard on reading for her life; from Malcolm Gladwell on entering the minds of others to Michael Lewis on books as secret discoveries; and from Lea Ypi on the search for freedom to Slavoj...

Comparing early phases of urban development in four regions – the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica – this essay offers a global perspective on the origins of civic life. While we may never be able to reconstruct the unwritten constitutions of these earliest cities, or the reforms undergone in their first centuries, we can hardly doubt that these existed. Consideration of archaeological and written evidence from across the four areas suggests in every case, that significant...

Brought to you by Penguin.For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wro...

Cognition Switch: An Artefact for the Transmission of New IdeasIssue #2: January 2019Featuring Ideas by:Michael Shermer, Peter Staudenmaier, Sabine Hossenfelder, Kate Raworth, Benjamin G Martin, Noah Charney, David Wengrow, Kimberley Brownlee, Tali Sharot, Robert Simpson, Thea Bechshoft, Martin Rees, Jon Butterworth, Bill Nye, Huw Price, and Henry Cowles

My Arsenal Life brings you all the highs and lows of the club’s post-war history from a unique insider’s perspective. As a close friend and confidant to Arsenal players and managers from the 1960s to the late 1990s, Martin Wengrow enjoyed the kind of access that would be impossible in today's game.Foreword by Arsenal legend David O’Leary.In this unique book you’ll discover:Exclusive behind-the-scenes stories, includin...

THEMATIC ISSUE: RETHINKING URBANIZATION AND ITS LIVING LANDSCAPES FROM THE INSPIRING PERSPECTIVE OF A GREAT “MAESTRO” Edited by Marcella Frangipane and Linda Manzanilla INTRODUCTION. THE MANY DIMENSIONS OF THE “CITY” IN EARLY SOCIETIES Marcella Frangipane THE ORIGINS OF CIVIC LIFE – A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE David Wengrow MESOPOTAMIA AND NEIGHBOURING REGIONS SIXTY YEARS AFTER CITY INVINCIBLE, SURVEYS AND THE URBAN REVOLUTION IN QUESTION Pascal Butterlin THE CITY OF URUK AND ITS HINTERLAND Hans ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEARFINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2022'Pacey and potentially revolutionary' Sunday Times'Iconoclastic and irreverent ... an exhilarating read' The GuardianFor generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - eithe...

Updated and reissued in paperback to include and celebrate Arsenal’s Premier League title-winning triumph, My Arsenal Life is the story of the lost world of the club’s post-war history, told through the lens of lifelong super-fan Martin Wengrow.A friend and confidant to legendary players and managers from the 1960s to the late 1990s, Martin enjoyed the kind of access that would be impossible in today’s game. This is his Arsenal life!Foreword by Ars...

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European ...

A brief and original prehistory of the worldPrehistory covers human existence before written records, i.e. most of human existence. But it also refers to the discipline through which we scrutinize prehistoric times. PREHISTORY begins by looking at the discovery of a remote human past and the subsequent dramatic growth of the study of prehistory: early archaeology; geology; Darwin's ideas of evolution; cave paintings; fossil discoveries of human ancestors; museums a...

The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as Peter Wells argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience and cogn...