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A Million Years of Music
The Emergence of Human Modernity
Series: Zone Books
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Check link for latest rating. ( 42 ratings, 7 reviews)
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This book is suited to readers interested in the arts and culture, especially those fascinated by the evolution of music, anthropology, cognitive science, and human origins. It appeals to scholars and thoughtful general readers seeking a comprehensive and scholarly narrative on music’s place in human history.
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See moreA new narrative for the emergence of human music, drawing from archaeology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
A new narrative for the emergence of human music, drawing from archaeology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory.
What is the origin of music? In the last few decades, this centuries-old puzzle has been reinvigorated by new archaeological evidence and developments in the fields of cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory.
In this path-breaking book, renowned musicologist Gary Tomlinson draws from these areas to construct a new narrative for the emergence of human music. Starting at a period of human prehistory long before Homo sapiens or music existed, Tomlinson describes the incremental attainments that, by changing the communication and society of prehuman species, laid the foundation for musical behaviours in more recent times. He traces in Neandertals and early sapiens the accumulation and development of these capacities, and he details their coalescence into modern musical behaviour across the last hundred millennia.
But A Million Years of Music is not about music alone. Tomlinson builds a model of human evolution that revises our understanding of the interaction of biology and culture across evolutionary time-scales, challenging and enriching current models of our deep history.
As he tells his story, he draws in other emerging human traits: language, symbolism, a metaphysical imagination and the ritual it gives rise to, complex social structure, and the use of advanced technologies. Tomlinson's model of evolution allows him to account for much of what makes us a unique species in the world today and provides a new way of understanding the appearance of humanity in its modern form.
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
MAKE Literary Magazine praises the book as deeply interdisciplinary and a crucial work that challenges dismissive views of music, celebrating its role as central to human identity. Frontiers in Neuroscience highlights Tomlinson's biocultural hypothesis that portrays music as an emergent social phenomenon rather than a simple adaptation. The book is described as representing the current state of the art in understanding the musical mind.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781890951528
Publisher: Zone Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 30 October 2018
Country: United States
Imprint: Zone Books
Illustration: 8 b&w illus., 2 color ills; 10 Illustrations, unspecified
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 368
About the Author
Gary Tomlinson is John Hay Whitney Professor of Music and Humanities at Yale University, where he directs the Whitney Humanities Center. His books include Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others; Metaphysical Song: An Essay on Opera; and The Singing of the New World: Indigenous Voice in the Era of European Contact.
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