John Reader Books

Previous eds. published as: Missing links: the hunt for earliest man.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Lenin was an enigmatic leader, a resolute and audacious politician who had an immense impact on 20th century history. This biography is a reliable introduction to one of the key figures of the post-Tsarist Russia and the revolution.

A magisterial study of the city from its beginnings to the mega-conurbations of today.Cities is a fascinating exploration of the nature of the city and city life, of its structures, development and inhabitants.From the ruins of the earliest cities to the present, John Reader explores how cities coalesce, develop and thrive, how they can decline and die, how they remake themselves. He investigates their parasitic relationship with the countryside around them, the webs of trade and immigration they rely upon to survive, how they feed and water themselves and dispose of their wastes. The book is a sweeping exploration of what the city is and has been, fit to stand alongside Lewis Mumford’s 1962 classic The City in History .

Human beings are the most adaptable animals in the world. We successfully occupy every corner of the globe, from the tundra to the rain forest, from the high Andes to the blazing Kalahari. Nearly hairless, small of tooth and weak of limb, we human beings have nevertheless made ourselves at home everywhere. The reason, explains John Reader in this provocative study of human ecology, is that humans uniquely possess the most effective adaptive mechanism of all: culture. Moving into all kinds of environments, human beings have devised sets of beliefs, rules, and technologies specifically designed to ensure survival in the face of whatever obstacles the land, the weather, and that particular environment raise. This timely and important book provides heartening evidence of the resourcefulness with which human beings, everywhere and at all times, have responded to the challenges that have faced man on earth.