In 1974, I was asked to write a short article on a flamboyant early 19th century Egyptian tomb robber, Giovanni Belzoni, for Archaeology Magazine. After the article appeared, I was asked by an editor at Scribners in New York to write a book on early Egyptology. The Rape of the Nile appeared in 1975, was reviewed in Time Magazine, and was translated into nine languages. New editions appeared in 1972 and 2004. This book got me involved in writing books for the general trade market as a serious undertaking and made me realize that there were important stories to be told about the past.
Since then, I have written a whole series of general books, most of which are still in print. Some of them have been breakthrough books for me, notably The Adventure of Archaeology, an account of archaeological discovery published by National Geographic in 1985, which exposed my writing to a very large audience. The following year, the London publishers Thames and Hudson, asked me to write The Great Journey (1987), an account of the first settlement of the Americas. This received wide attention and was followed by The Journey from Eden, the story of the origin and spread of modern humans.
In recent years I’ve written five books on historical climate change and related topics: Floods, Famines, and Emperors (2000), The Little Ice Age (2002), and The Long Summer (2004) discuss major climatic change and short-term extreme weather events over the past 15,000 years. They have caused considerable interest, for they provide a historical background to current debates on global warming. Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World (2006) is a journey into the little-known world of medieval fishing and how Christian doctrine played a major role in the growth of Atlantic fisheries. Climate change plays an important part in this story as well (see Other Fagan Books).
Over the years, I’ve written many books and learned a great deal about writing archaeology for general audiences. Each book brings new challenges, fresh ideas, and additional things to learn about writing and writing about the past. How do I do it, I’m frequently asked. This is not an easy question to answer, so I’ve just written a short paperback called, appropriately, Writing Archaeology, as a guide to fellow archaeologists thinking about writing about the past for public audiences (see Other Fagan Books).
As well as writing about archaeology, I also lecture about a wide variety of topics to audiences of all kinds both in North America and overseas. Sometimes, the audiences are people with interests in subjects ranging from rainfall for water supplies to climatologists, even emergency technicians.
Fortunately, I have other interests in life other than archaeology. I’ve been a cruising sailor since age eight and now own a 19-foot sailboat of traditional Scandinavian heritage. My interests include cats, bicycling, good food, and sea kayaking. I’m married with two daughters and we live in Santa Barbara, California, accompanied by four felines and sometimes, but fortunately not always, up to 24 rabbits.
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