Archaeology
Mohammad Mortezaei
Abstract
As an enthused group in the late Umayyad period, the Abbasids sought to mobilize their resources in the engagement with the ruling dynasty by presenting a new ideology, viz. the so-called Summon System, and undertook significant actions in enticing anti-Umayyad elements to bring them under the unified ...
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As an enthused group in the late Umayyad period, the Abbasids sought to mobilize their resources in the engagement with the ruling dynasty by presenting a new ideology, viz. the so-called Summon System, and undertook significant actions in enticing anti-Umayyad elements to bring them under the unified patronage promoted by the slogan “al-Riza min Al-e Muhammad.” The book The Rise and Fall of the Abbasids (132‒324 AH): A Research into the Structure and Evolution of the Ideology, Economics and Military Institution is an authored work by Mohammad Ahmadi Manesh, published by the SAMT Publications in 2018. The author has fittingly organized the book in the two sections of “A Historical Inquiry” (consisting of eight chapters) and “A Theoretical Inquiry” (comprising two chapters), producing a worthwhile work. The present article attempts to review the volume, pinning down and examining its strengths and shortcomings. At any rate, as a result of the lack of due care and laxity, the volume suffers somewhat from occasional shortfalls, among them being the choice of the title “The Fall and Down…,” and a series of points that are made in the Introduction but are not reflected in the text, not to mention the author’s failure to address the complexities involved in the Abbasid rule and to adopt a holistic approach to their rise to power, particularly in Khorasan.
Archaeology
Hamed Vahdati Nasab
Abstract
The book of Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: How Our Animal Heritage Affects the Way We Live, written by Jared Diamond is one of the best works in linking the evolutionary biology and cultural complexity of human societies. The author attempted to search for many of the social behaviors of modern ...
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The book of Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: How Our Animal Heritage Affects the Way We Live, written by Jared Diamond is one of the best works in linking the evolutionary biology and cultural complexity of human societies. The author attempted to search for many of the social behaviors of modern humans in inherited biology from ancient ancestors of humans and has been very successful in this regard. Perhaps the only disadvantage of the book is the lack of updating its content, a subject that has been criticized. In this article, the author attempts to express the contents of a book and, in some cases, update it in cases where more recent discoveries than the time of writing the book have been confirmed by some writers. This book is divided into five sections. The first and second sections (the first seven chapters) deal with evidence about bones, tools, and genes, which are utilized for archeological and biological documentation. The third section (chapters 8-12) pertains to the cultural characteristics which distinguish humans from animals. In the last two sections of the book, the author succinctly reviews the devastating features of humankind and trace the origins of some of these features in the ancient biology.
