The Atlas of Early Man: The Rise of Man Across the Globe, from 35,000 B.C. to A.D. 500 with Over 1,000 Maps and Illustrations

I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore one day and knew I had to add it to my collection. The book format: Overall segmentation of book into "eight distinct chunks of time" (35000 to 8000 BC, 8000-5000 BC, 5000-3000 BC, 3000-2000 BC, 2000-1000 BC, 1000-500 BC, 500 BC-1 AD, and 1-500 AD)in chronological order. Hawkes has done a fine job mixing valuable visual content with written content. Each segment of time has the following sub-segmentation: 1. Overview of time period2. technology 3. architecture4. art5. chart of important occurrences by region (Mesopotamia, Egypt/Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Mediterranean, Continental Europe, Iran-India, Far East, and the Americas), to include: economy (irrigation, hunting, urban life, trade), centres (important locations/cities), events and developments, people, religion, technology and inventions, architecture, and art. As a bonus, Hawkes throws in an atlas of archaeological site maps of the regions discussed in the book. The book has a nice "index" as well. There is nothing that irks me more than turning to a shoddy index and being thwarted in my attempts to locate something specific within a text. But let me re-iterate. This is a great overview of cultural events occurring throughout this time span. I have yet to see any other book that does this in such a holistic manner. I have used this book frequently when I wanted to get a better understanding of the relation of events occurring during specific periods in time. For example, what was the state of world architecture during the Roman Republic, or, what were the religious practices at the time of tombs of Alaca Huyuk were built? This book is well worth the investment. It's one of those book that gets pulled from the bookshelf repeatedly.