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| The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World | 
 enlarge | Author: David W. Anthony
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: £19.95
Buy New: £11.49
You Save: £8.46 (42%)
New (33) Used (7) from £11.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 10568
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 566
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 0691058873
Dewey Decimal Number: 950.1
EAN: 9780691058870
ASIN: 0691058873
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Incredibly detailed and concise June 16, 2008
This is an excellent book. It complements Mallory's book on the Indo-Europeans and takes a similar no-nonsense line. It is particularly good in its refutation of the woolly notions of certain archaeologists like Renfrew, Cunliffe and Pryor who would have us believe that the Indo-Europeans spread throughout Europe with farming. While it is quite technical in places, any intelligent general reader will be able to follow his arguments without difficulty. I can't recommend it highly enough.
The origins of proto-Indo-European in some detail. April 21, 2008
A very detailed and convincing book that almost certainly explains the origins of proto-Indo-European people and languages in the Pontic Ukraine. All links to surrounding cultures and languages and their links to PIE are discussed in minute detail. This is a very thick book which needs to be read twice to really understand fully. The only critisism is that Anthony does not summarise or give enough maps to help the quick reader, but there are enough maps and illustrations to provide detail to the dedicated reader with an interest in PIE.
Essentially the Northern Black Sea was the source of a steppe people who had first mastery of horses wagons and later chariots and copper smelting all of which gave them advantages over neighbouring peoples. PIE slowly spread over time through a combination of assimilation domination and conquests, using PIE as a type of networking language. The steppes initially provided a fast means to transmit that culture with the aid of the horse, and the Steppes had a unique advantage of having access to the 4 origins of civilisation in the Balkans the Middle East, Eurasia and China. More detail is given to the Eastern PIE peoples like the Tocharians and Indo-Iranians, than to the origins of European languages.
A FASCINATING JUMP INTO THE PAST January 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just read few pages of this wonderful book. I've always been fascinated about the origins and the changes of our languages, and I, being neither an archeologist nor an historical linguist, find astonishing how those scientist can reconstruct phonological and lexical shifts during the eras, and so can reconstruct our history too. I am reading this book as a novel. It includes the top scientific research but it is also easy readable. Every concept and tool is explained in detail. I am an italian translator and think this book deserves quickly an italian translation.
Silvio Ferraresi
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