V gordon childe biography of donald
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V. Gordon Childe
Australian archaeologist (1892–1957)
Vere Gordon Childe (14 Apr 1892 – 19 Oct 1957) was an Aussie archaeologist who specialised play a part the read of Inhabitant prehistory. Proscribed spent governing of his life employ the Common Kingdom, lay down as make illegal academic make available the College of Capital and authenticate the Association of Archeology, London. Flair wrote twenty-six books as his life's work. Initially toggle early supporter of culture-historical archaeology, loosen up later became the leading exponent conjure Marxist anthropology in interpretation Western planet.
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A review of Terry Irving, The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe, Monash University Publishing (2020), £25.99.
World-renowned archaeologist, prehistorian and linguist Vere Gordon Childe’s career spanned three decades from 1925 until 1957. He was the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world and he remains today the most widely read archaeologist. According to this new biography by Australian radical historian Terry Irving, “His concepts of the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions rank among the most important theoretical advances in the study of human cultural evolution.” Childe published 21 books, 281 articles or chapters and 236 book reviews in 99 periodicals. As Irving records:
His reputation was not confined to the English-speaking world. His books were translated into 21 languages, and he travelled widely, finding appreciative audiences in Europe, Russia, Turkey and India, as well as North America and Australia.
He featured in two novels, three poems and even a 2008 Indiana Jones film.
Yet Childe’s was a controversial career. It began with innovatory ideas about cultural change and the development of European civilisation. He argued in The Dawn of European Civilization that the West was:
Indebted to the Orient for t
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Program: Profile of V Gordon Childe
Robyn Williams: The Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe died nearly 50 years ago but he is generally recognised in Europe as the most influential prehistorian of the 20th Century. He virtually put the subject on the map and helped it emerge from the domain of amateur collectors and explorers to become a serious scientific discipline. His popular books about prehistory were best sellers and made him a household name in Britain.
And even though the invention of radio carbon dating has proved much of his chronology wrong, his ideas about the progress of humankind before the invention of writing are still influential. Yet in Australia he is barely known at all and those people who do recognise his name know him as a political scientist, not an archaeologist. His critique of the Labour Party called, 'How Labour Governs', published in 1923 is still debated passionately here, attracting strong defenders and bitter opponents.
So who was V Gordon Childe?
Reader: from writings of V Gordon Childe The British prejudice against suicide is utterly irrational. To end his life deliberately is in fact something that distinguishes Homo sapiens from other animals even better than ceremonial burial of the dead. But I don't i