---
product_id: 62008896
title: "By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia"
price: "€ 35.92"
currency: EUR
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reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.gr/products/62008896-by-steppe-desert-and-ocean-the-birth-of-eurasia
store_origin: GR
region: Greece
---

# By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia

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## Description

desertcart.com: By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia: 9780199689187: Cunliffe, Barry: Books

Review: A Very Good Book - Very, very interesting book. I think Mr. Cunliffe has done an amazingly good job here, presenting just enough archaeological and historical fact and supporting it adequately for an interested layman. To me, Central Asia and its connection to East and West was an empty space interspersed with question marks. After this book, the space is filled with peoples and events, though the questions marks seem to have multiplied! The book is intended to be educational as well as interesting. Chapters are introduced, presented, and summarized: for someone who wants to retain some of what he's read, this book is a wonderful gift. One of the very few books I've seen that has enough maps to keep me oriented. And enough photos to give a feel for the high level of art/artisanship of bronze age craftsmen, to pique one's interest.. I can't praise the author enough for his careful selection of maps and photos, it is a very strong feature of this book. There is the occasional confusion of "east" with "west" in the text, but if you follow the maps, they'll not confuse you. Aimed at general audiences, I hazard a guess that this book will interest specialists as well. I know I'll read it more than once, and will try to investigate some of Mr. Cunliffe's recommended readings. I'm sure Mr. Cunliffe is Dr. Cunliffe, but I'm unable to find this stated in the book or the cover paper.. I've used Mr. in my review, trying to respect his example.
Review: Enlightening archaeology, history not so much - I am torn by the star rating for this book. For the early sections, written on the basis of archaeological knowledge from which Cunliffe draws an erudite and highly readable story, and the closing part, where he takes a big step back and tries to see overarching patterns, it is excellent and, if it were possible I would give it six out of five stars. For the intervening parts, seemingly drawn predominantly from written histories he is less inspiring and, perhaps because of the huge span that this work encompasses, the condensing of details can at time be confusing. Deciding what should be left out of a work of this gigantic scope must be difficult and , no doubt, all readers will have their own regretted omissions; one of mine was that he did not mention, in an otherwise nice summary, Mongol failures against Burma/Myanmar and Japan. However, this is still a good book which may leave readers looking at the world in a slightly different way.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #710,092 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #22 in Historical Event Literature Criticism #126 in Asian History (Books) #1,044 in Literature |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 237 Reviews |

## Images

![By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71v+CzyuuOL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Very Good Book
*by E***D on July 10, 2017*

Very, very interesting book. I think Mr. Cunliffe has done an amazingly good job here, presenting just enough archaeological and historical fact and supporting it adequately for an interested layman. To me, Central Asia and its connection to East and West was an empty space interspersed with question marks. After this book, the space is filled with peoples and events, though the questions marks seem to have multiplied! The book is intended to be educational as well as interesting. Chapters are introduced, presented, and summarized: for someone who wants to retain some of what he's read, this book is a wonderful gift. One of the very few books I've seen that has enough maps to keep me oriented. And enough photos to give a feel for the high level of art/artisanship of bronze age craftsmen, to pique one's interest.. I can't praise the author enough for his careful selection of maps and photos, it is a very strong feature of this book. There is the occasional confusion of "east" with "west" in the text, but if you follow the maps, they'll not confuse you. Aimed at general audiences, I hazard a guess that this book will interest specialists as well. I know I'll read it more than once, and will try to investigate some of Mr. Cunliffe's recommended readings. I'm sure Mr. Cunliffe is Dr. Cunliffe, but I'm unable to find this stated in the book or the cover paper.. I've used Mr. in my review, trying to respect his example.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enlightening archaeology, history not so much
*by D***H on December 15, 2016*

I am torn by the star rating for this book. For the early sections, written on the basis of archaeological knowledge from which Cunliffe draws an erudite and highly readable story, and the closing part, where he takes a big step back and tries to see overarching patterns, it is excellent and, if it were possible I would give it six out of five stars. For the intervening parts, seemingly drawn predominantly from written histories he is less inspiring and, perhaps because of the huge span that this work encompasses, the condensing of details can at time be confusing. Deciding what should be left out of a work of this gigantic scope must be difficult and , no doubt, all readers will have their own regretted omissions; one of mine was that he did not mention, in an otherwise nice summary, Mongol failures against Burma/Myanmar and Japan. However, this is still a good book which may leave readers looking at the world in a slightly different way.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sets the bar for an under covered nodal point of history
*by B***S on August 17, 2016*

As an armchair historian this book zeros in on my favorite subject-the history of interaction between Europe and Asia. This puts all my reading in the field in perspective like no other book I've read. I'll admit the first half drags,with no written record the tale has to be pieced together from scattered clues and much surmise(guesses) relying mainly on archeological digs. One more burial excavation and I was gonna scream. I will admit he laid the neccessary groundwork and I was glad I hung in. Underpinnings established,once Cunliffe gets to the rise of predatory nomadism and the spread of Greek trading settlements in the Black Sea,both taking place in the first millennium B.C.,he has much more data to work with and the tale comes alive. The read stays fascinating thru his chosen cutoff point for the history around 1400 A.D. with the end of major Mongol incursions,the era of the Black death and the triumph of the ocean as the preferred route of interaction between east and west. One caveat with this book and others of this type is that maps made for hard bound don't cut it on a Kindle-the map print was almost unreadable(too small) and the shading types used to differentiate areas were hard to tell apart. Come on guys. Whining aside,this was a heck of a book-recommended. Added note:I normally skip the bibliography unless I'm into the subject. For hard core aficionados of esoterica Cunliffe's extensive guide to further reading is a treasure. Putting in an obvious extra effort he includes sources that don't require access to a major university library-like books available thru the Amazon book store-e.g. The Great Game:The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia or online sources like the journal,The Silk Road-e.g. Vol. 8 has an interesting article on qanats(underground equivalent of Roman aqueducts) and one on the composite bows that facilatated the massive sucess of nomad conquests. Extra points.

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*Store origin: GR*
*Last updated: 2026-02-06*