Why read The Horse, the Wheel, and Language?

Book cover of The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

Book description

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists,…

Explore

Topics

Genres

History

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Horse, the Wheel, and Language as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Kenneth W. Harl

Author

Anthony has synthesized a vast literature on historical linguistics and archaeology to explain the origins of the first steppe nomads on the South Russian steppes in the fourth millennium B.C.

In my opinion, Anthony does an outstanding job of explaining the origins and distribution of the speakers of Indo-European languages whose migrations have defined the linguistic map from Ireland to India. Subsequent DNA analysis of the populations of Yamnaya steppe culture has confirmed his thesis based on linguistic evidence and archaeology.

I recommend this book as the fundamental work for any study of the early Indo-European-speaking nomads.

From Kenneth's list on how the nomadic peoples enriched and shaped civilizations across Eurasia.