John Man takes on this developing world methodically, moving across the continents, taking each people in turn and in a couple of pages outlining their status in historical and cultural contexts, past and present.

Recognizable events included the murder of Malcolm, later to be immortalized in That Scottish Play, the writing of The Tale of Genji, possibly the world's first novel, the Battle of Maldon, and the carving of the Easter Island statues. Vikings were in Vinland (Canada's Newfoundland today), Basques were roaming the oceans, Polynesians roamed the South Seas, and the Jews were the blood coursing through the new-born community's veins, linking empires with their indomitable trading. The notion of a millennium would occupy a book in itself (and has: see Stephen Jay Gould's terrific Questioning the Millennium), so rather than box himself in, anthropologist John Man wisely attempts a general appraisal of the late-10th-and-early-11th-century world, and how it hung together.Īnd it did hang together. Around the turn of the last millennium, time bore a different complexion indeed, it was expressed through a variety of calendars. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. For nonliterate cultures-in the United States, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, Africa-this book draws on a wealth of archeological research, some of it made available to nonspecialists for the first time. Here lie startling contrasts with today's world, and even foreshadowing of the future that are equally astonishing in their familiarity. In some cultures-Europe, Islam, China, and Japan-written records contain a vast range of materials, often revealing sharply focused details of life and personality. In text, maps, and pictures, most in color, and drawing on the expertise of two dozen consultants, John Man has created a concise compendium of all the major cultures of the lost millennial world of 1000. In an immensely learned portrayal, he traces enduring cultural strands that became part of the world as we know it today.

John Man vividly captures these epochal events, and depicts the colorful peoples that defined the world's mix of stability and change, of isolation and contact.

These and other peoples reached out to create links and put isolated cultures unwittingly in touch. Vikings, with links to Scandinavia and Russia, had just arrived in North America. Islam bridged Eurasia, western Europe, and North Africa. This dazzling book takes us on a voyage of discovery around the world at the turn of the last millennium, when for the first time the world was in essence a unity.

Atlas of the Year 1000 by John Man