PDF Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood by Miriam J. Petty in History

Description

“I have seen yesterday. I know tomorrow.” This inscription in Tutankhamun’s tomb summarizes The Fifth Beginning. Here; archaeologist Robert L. Kelly explains how the study of our cultural past can predict the future of humanity. In an eminently readable style; Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human development: the emergence of technology; culture; agriculture; and the state. In each example; the author examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive; no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead; giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning; one that started about AD 1500. Some might call it “globalization;” but the author places it in its larger context: a five-thousand-year arms race; capitalism’s global reach; and the cultural effects of a worldwide communication network. Kelly predicts that the emergent phenomena of this fifth beginning will include the end of war as a viable way to resolve disputes; the end of capitalism as we know it; the widespread shift toward world citizenship; and the rise of forms of cooperation that will end the near-sacred status of nation-states. It’s the end of life as we have known it. However; the author is cautiously optimistic: he dwells not on the coming chaos; but on humanity’s great potential.