The Emergence and Decline of Civilizations

This series presents fresh insight into how human societies have emerged, how they constituted to survive, and why they collapsed. It draws upon various prehistoric, ancient, and modern epochs of human history and different locations of human inhabitation. The volumes in it are indicative, synoptic and yet powerfully evocative of the range of issues that are yet unattended or not directly covered by the narratives offered. The conceptualization of the volumes in the series is significantly different from what ‘deep history’ presents. Without overlooking the historicity of major episodes of civilizations in the past or the present, ‘civilization’ is depicted in these volumes as an ongoing story, with its breaks, continuities, powerful manifestations, and conspicuous absences. The series offers a ‘global south’ perspective on ‘civilization’, albeit, consciously avoiding ‘binary conceptualization’ of the past, people, and their thought.