Mankind and Deserts 3. Группа авторов

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       Series Editor

       Françoise Gaill

      Mankind and Deserts 3

       Wind in Deserts and Civilizations

       Edited by

      Fernand Joly

      Guilhem Bourrié

      First published 2021 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

      ISTE Ltd

      27-37 St George’s Road

      London SW19 4EU

      UK

       www.iste.co.uk

      John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      111 River Street

      Hoboken, NJ 07030

      USA

       www.wiley.com

      © ISTE Ltd 2021

      The rights of Fernand Joly and Guilhem Bourrié to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930490

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78630-632-6

      Foreword

       Mankind and deserts

Fernand Joly¹ departed from this world before he was able to complete this book, through which he had hoped to share his experiences of and passion for deserts.

      “Yet another book on deserts!” some might think; another book to add to the numerous publications dedicated to these alien and fascinating worlds.

      This book, however, is different from earlier books, as can be seen from its title “Mankind and Deserts”. It is based on the singular relationships that are formed between humans and the world of the desert – relationships that are unique because they can be traced back to the very origins of humanity. Indeed, it is from the arid Horn of Africa (East Africa) that large migrations began and it is along the deserts, if not within the deserts themselves, that we find the major cradles of burgeoning historical civilizations. This inhospitable world is also associated with great spiritual leaders such as Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha, while serving as the backdrop for adventurers and empire builders from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, or from the Incans to the Conquistadors in the Andes and Mexico.

      What is this universe that is so barren and yet so mesmerizing?

“All about a word” was how Fernand Joly introduced his book: “What is a desert?” The ambiguity in this word results from the fact that it has been used in different senses across literature and throughout history. For a geographer-writer such as Fernand Joly, the one fact that stood out was that there was no one desert; instead there were multiple deserts,