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Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley
The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This settlement in favour of the
agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent human history. Domestication of plants in the Old World reviews the origin and spread of
cultivation in south-west Asia, Europe, and north-east Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This new edition incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors; it adds material on several new crop
plants; and it incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps.
From reviews of the second 'This book is indeed a "mine of information". An enormous and diverse body of important results is digested and presented economically, in a form that should encourage other authors to mine it and apply the results to their own fields.' Nature
'This is an excellent book, suitable for libraries, reference shelves, and anyone who teaches or writes about plant domestication.' Journal of Ethnobiology
'Only a few years after the publication, in 1988, of Zohary and Hopf's textbook, the volume was already out of print.... One cannot be grateful enough to the authors that they seized the opportunity to update the book.... An indispensable reference work; a wealth of information is presented in a
systematic way.... This already classic textbook has amply proven its value, and hardly needs further recommendation.' Helinium
agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent human history. Domestication of plants in the Old World reviews the origin and spread of
cultivation in south-west Asia, Europe, and north-east Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This new edition incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors; it adds material on several new crop
plants; and it incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps.
From reviews of the second 'This book is indeed a "mine of information". An enormous and diverse body of important results is digested and presented economically, in a form that should encourage other authors to mine it and apply the results to their own fields.' Nature
'This is an excellent book, suitable for libraries, reference shelves, and anyone who teaches or writes about plant domestication.' Journal of Ethnobiology
'Only a few years after the publication, in 1988, of Zohary and Hopf's textbook, the volume was already out of print.... One cannot be grateful enough to the authors that they seized the opportunity to update the book.... An indispensable reference work; a wealth of information is presented in a
systematic way.... This already classic textbook has amply proven its value, and hardly needs further recommendation.' Helinium
328 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 1988
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February 1, 2018
The page count of this book is not that impressive, but the amount of knowledge the authors managed to fill it with is. A very well researched and dense book of high quality. The coverage is very broad; the book covers a lot of different crop types (cereals, pulses, fruit trees and nuts, vegetables and tubers; there are even short sections on condiments and dye crops). The breadth naturally means that the amount of depth provided is limited - though especially as far as the cereals go, it's not actually that limited - but in the case of all crops covered in the book we get at least some information about what is known, how we know it (archaeology, genetics, linguistic evidence), and how strong this evidence is, according to the authors. A discussion of the wild ancestry of the crop in question is included for all crops (as far as I can remember), even if the 'discussion' is sometimes limited basically to an observation that we don't really know very much at this point. The book might feel slightly formulaic to read because it's the same sort of evidence that is encountered repeatedly and quite a few crops have quite similar domestication histories, but on the other hand there's no question that the formula applied works, which makes this a great book.
The book doesn't cover the entire 'Old World' in that China/East Asia is not covered in any detail - this was a deliberate decision made by the authors - but even so this is a highly edifying and comprehensive work.
I'd note that if you read both this book and Bellwood's First Farmers, the combination of those two books is arguably greater than the sum of their parts.
The book doesn't cover the entire 'Old World' in that China/East Asia is not covered in any detail - this was a deliberate decision made by the authors - but even so this is a highly edifying and comprehensive work.
I'd note that if you read both this book and Bellwood's First Farmers, the combination of those two books is arguably greater than the sum of their parts.
Displaying 1 of 1 review