The Cambridge World History

Volume 1 of the Cambridge World History is an introduction to both the discipline of world history and the earliest phases of world history up to 10000 BCE. In Part I leading scholars outline the approaches methods and themes that have shaped and defined world history scholarship across the world and right up to the present day. Chapters examine the historiographical development of the field globally periodisation divergence and convergence belief and knowledge technology and innovation family gender anthropology migration and fire. Part II surveys the vast Palaeolithic era which laid the foundations for human history concentrating on the most recent phases of hominin evolution the rise of Homo sapiens and the very earliest human societies through to the end of the last ice age. Anthropologists archaeologists historical linguists and historians examine climate and tools language and culture as well as offering regional perspectives from across the world.