Europe Before History

The societies of the European Bronze Age produced elaborate artifacts and were drawn into a wide trade network extending over the whole of Europe, even though they were economically and politically undiversified. Kristian Kristiansen attempts to explain this paradox using a world-systems analysis, and in particular he tries to account for the absence of state formation. He presents his case with a powerful marshalling of the evidence across the whole of Europe over two millennia. The result is the most coherent overview of this period of European prehistory since the writings of Gordon Childe and Christopher Hawkes. One of the great strengths of his book is the broad European perspective, which allows him to address some of the larger questions that have been raised in the study of the Bronze Age. Europe before history captures the complexity of a prehistorical world at different levels of integra­tion and interaction from local to global.