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Wengrow's contribution to the Yale University's Rostovtzeff Lectures and as such the first few chapters engage Rostovzeff's thought. Wengrow attempts to salvage Rostovtzeff's socio-economic analysis of cultural transmission. It is not a half-hearted gesture.Wengrow's critique is best when he returns to his own familiar footing - the mechanical reproduction that sprang up along with the development of urban centers. The most compelling theory put forth is that monsters traveled along trade routes...
The book tells the marvelous story of the earliest depicted composite imagery and delves into different modes of transmittion of how the socio-cultural situations influenced the way those images were being adopted. As a historical account for the movement of imagery, the book does an awesome job, yet the chosen methodology of "epidemiology of culture" ends vague and fails to prove why it was there in the first place. What was missing for me for the most of the book (except the Protective images)...
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