Savages and Civilization - by Jack Weatherford (Paperback)

About the Book

Anthropologist Weatherford has opened the enlightened readers to the contributions of Native Americans to our so-called modern culture. Now he broadens his focus to reveal the legacies of tribal and ethnic cultures, and demonstrates that our survival as a species is based not on a choice between savages and civilization, but rather on a commitment to their vital coexistence.

Book Synopsis

A "provocative [and] vivid" (Minneapolis Star Tribune) look at the primitive cultures that have given many gifts to the modern world, and how their very existence is now threatened

"This book should serve as a 'wake-up' call to people everywhere."--Library Journal

In Indian Givers and Native Roots, renowned anthropologist Jack Weatherford explored the clash between Native American and European cultures. Now, in Savages and Civilization, Weatherford broadens his focus to examine how civilization threatens to obliterate unique tribal and ethnic cultures around the world--and in the process imperils its own existence.

As Weatherford explains, the relationship between "civilized" and "savage" peoples through history has encompassed not only violence, but also a surprising degree of cooperation, mutual influence, trade, and intermarriage. But this relationship has now entered a critical stage everywhere in the world, as indigenous peoples fiercely resist the onslaught of a global civilization that will obliterate their identities.

Savages and Civilization powerfully demonstrates that our survival as a species is based not on a choice between savages and civilization, but rather on a commitment to their vital coexistence.

Review Quotes

"Highly recommended...Fascinating and insightful .... Goes beyond a description of existing cultures to illuminate. on a global scale, the struggle of these peoples against the loss of their cultural identity....This book should serve as a 'wake-up' call to people everywhere." -- Library Journal

"To read anthropologist Jack Weatherford is to look into the mirror....His sweep is of all of recorded history and earlier, encompassed in these last brief 10,000 years, everything from Han Chinese and aborigines, from Micronesians and Tatars, from Greeks and Egyptians and from Alexander the Great to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia."

-- The Tampa Tribune & Times

"Hugely entertaining." -- Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Jack Weatherford is the New York Times bestselling author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, and The History of Money, among other acclaimed books. A specialist in tribal peoples, he was for many years a professor of anthropology at Macalester College in Minnesota and now divides his time between the United States and Mongolia.