Description
Book SynopsisProposes new interpretations of some of the most famous extant Paleolithic art and artifacts. Barry Cooper demonstrates the political significance of the earliest expressions of human existence and is among the first to argue that political life began 25,000 years before the Greeks.
Trade Review“Paleolithic Politics is a thorough, philosophically astute, cross-disciplinary engagement of a political scientist with scientists and scholars of the Paleolithic concerning phenomena that have remained both compelling and deeply puzzling.” —Thomas Heilke, author of The Primacy of Persons in Politics
“Barry Cooper’s Paleolithic Politics is far and away the best general introduction to Upper Paleolithic art I’ve come across. Cooper lifts the detailed discussion at the level both of description and of the plethora of carefully assessed theories into a rich philosophical anthropology drawn from Bernard Lonergan, Max Scheler, Hans Jonas, and especially Eric Voegelin.” —Brendan Purcell, author of From Big Bang to Big Mystery
“A refreshingly candid, insightful, well-informed, and well-balanced account by a political scientist ‘outsider’ of the good, the bad, and the useless scholars who have endeavored to make sense of the beautiful but enigmatic imagery of the last Ice Age.” —Paul G. Bahn, author of The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art
"The great worth of Cooper’s book is to raise the bar on any politics that would aim to cast off the past in hopes of a great leap forward. The paleolithic is more than a choice for wellness gurus, it stands as a challenge to ponder whether human consciousness is rooted to our place in the cosmos." —Law & Liberty
"Barry Cooper’s Paleolithic Politics is a thoughtful and thorough account of the Paleolithic period that brings unique insight into cave art and what it may mean for its authors and for us. " —VoegelinView
