Barry Cunliffe

Para el ser humano la mar es, y siempre ha sido, un espacio ajeno. Mientras que la tierra es familiar, incluso reconfortante, la mar es extraña y amenazante. Entonces, ¿por qué nos lanzamos a ella? ¿Que nos hizo aventurarnos hacia lo desconocido? Oceano es la historiay la prehistoriade Europa narrada desde la mar, o, mejor, desde dos mares enfrentados, el Mediterraneo y el Atlantico. En esta obra, de amplia perspectiva y profundo conocimiento, Barry Cunliffe nos lleva desde las primeras tentativas de exploracion del Mediterraneo, hace 100 000 años, hasta los viajes transoceanicos del siglo XVI, que cartografiarian el globo. Con una vision renovadora sobre la historia de todo un continente, el libro explora las expediciones en busca de tierra, fama y fortuna que tentaron a los europeos, primero a lo largo y ancho de ese mar interior que es el Mediterraneo, y despues hacia las profundidades de ese temible e inabarcable oceano que es el Atlantico. Desde los cazadores recolectores del Paleolitico hasta los descubridores españoles, desde los mercaderes fenicios a los piratas vikingos, y desde Piteas a Colon, Oceano dibuja el espacio de conectividad y comunicacion que fueron y son el Mediterraneo y Atlantico, arterias por las que fluyeron gentes, objetos, productos e ideas. Y cuenta la historia de como la innata...

In this highly illustrated book Barry Cunliffe focuses on the western rim of Europe--the Atlantic facade--an area stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Isles of Shetland.We are shown how original and inventive the communities were, and how they maintained their own distinctive identities often over long spans of time. Covering the period from the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, c. 8,000 BC, to the voyages of discovery c . AD 1500, he uses this last half millennium more as a well-studied test case to help the reader better understand what went before. The beautiful illustrations show how this picturesque part of Europe has many striking physical similarities. Old hard rocks confront the ocean creating promontories and capes familiar to sailors throughout the millennia. Land's End, Finistere, Finisterra--until the end of the fifteenth century this was where the world ended in a turmoil of ocean beyond which there was nothing. To the people who lived in these remote places the sea was their means of communication and those occupying similar locations were their neighbours.The communities frequently developed distinctive characteristics intensifying aspects of their culture the more clearly to distinguish themselves from their in-land neighbours. But there is an added level of interest here in that the sea provided a vital link with neighbouring remote-place communities encouraging a commonality of interest and allegiances. Even today the Bretons see themselves as distinct from the French but refer to the Irish, Welsh, and Galicians as their brothers and cousins. Archaeological evidence from the prehistoric period amply demonstrates the bonds which developed and intensified between these isolated communities and helped to maintain a shared but distinctive Atlantic identity.

Ranging from the earliest settlements through the emergence of Minoan civilization to the barbarian world at the end of the Roman Empire, this extraordinary volume provides a fascinating look at how successive cultures adapted to the landscape of Europe. In synthesizing the diverse findings of archeology, Barry Cunliffe and a team of distinguished experts capture the sweeping movements of peoples, the spread of agriculture, the growth of metal working, and the rise and fall of cultures, blending superb detail with ornate illustrations. For centuries, we knew little of the European civilizations that preceded classical Greece or arose outside of the Roman Empire, beyond ancient myths and the writings of Roman observers. Now the most recent discoveries of archeology have been synthesized into one exciting volume. Featuring hundreds of stunning photographs, this book provides the most complete account available of the prehistory of European civilization. `takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the development of Western culture -- a definitive study.'' Oxford Times

Readers can explore the streets and landscapes of historical cities in artwork reconstructions—from Roman London via medieval Norwich to eighteenth-century Dublin and Enlightenment Edinburgh. And superbly detailed maps depict such intriguing aspects of history as Neolithic monuments, Viking raids, the Napoleonic wars, the home front during the Second World War—and even Beatles concert venues in the 1960s—as well as painstakingly showing the influence that humans have had on the landscape over the centuries.

This revised introduction to Britain in the first millennium BC incorporates modifications to a story that is still controversial. It covers a time of dramatic change in Europe, dominated by the emergence of Rome as a megastate. In Britain, on the extremity of these developments, it was a period of profound social and economic change, which saw the end of the prehistoric cycle of the Neolithic and bronze Ages, and the beginning of a world that was to change little in its essentials until the great voyages of colonization and trade of the 16th century. The theme of the book is that of social change within an insular society sitting on the periphery of a world in revolution.