Thames and Hudson, Date: 1989-01-01. Hardcover. New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 1989. Thames and Hudson ISBN 050005052X 9780500050521 [US]

Content appears as new, unopened, unread & unblemished in dark blue, cloth covered boards with DJ displaying minimal surface/edge wear as shown, with repaired tear near top spineWhile superseded to some degree by David W. Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel and Language, J.P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans is fine reading for those interested in the people who spoke the ancestor of most tongues of Europe and western Asia. While scholars have carefully reconstructed a proto-language, the identity of its speakers and their geographical origin remain a mystery, and J.P. Mallory shows what is currently thought in the fieldMallory begins by tracing the historical development of European comparative linguistics, and then examines the various branches of the Indo-European language family first in Asia, then in Europe. However, the most useful portion of the book begins when Mallory attempts to reconstruct as well as one can the actual cultural and social traits of the Indo-Europeans based on the proto-language they spoke. He shows how horses must have been very important within such a culture, asserts that the people must have lived within certain geographical boundaries based on their common vocabulary, and even postulates Proto-Indo-European religious rituals. Unlike Watkins's How to Kill a Dragon or M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Mallory does not give much space to concepts of comparative Indo-European poetics.The last ...