Civilisations.
BINET, Laurent.
Civilisations.
First Limited Edition of Civilisations; Signed by Laurent Binet
London: Harvill Secker, 2021.
$200.00
In Stock
Item Number: 150628
Signed limited first edition of this alternate-history novel of the Americas and Europe. Octavo, original publishers red boards, all edges red. One of 250 numbered copies, this is number 176. Boldly signed by Laurent Binet on the title page. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Translated from the French by Sam Taylor.
Civilisations (2019) by Laurent Binet is an alternate-history novel that reimagines the early modern Atlantic world by reversing the familiar narrative of European conquest. Through a structure that mimics historical documents—chronicles, testimonies, and pseudo-archival fragments—Binet constructs a counterfactual scenario in which Indigenous American powers exert political and military dominance in Europe. The novel uses this inversion to interrogate the contingency of empire, the cultural assumptions embedded in conventional historiography, and the mechanisms through which “civilisation” is claimed, imposed, or narrated. By blending historiographic play with political critique, Civilisations functions both as a speculative reconstruction of world history and as a commentary on how historical authority is produced and legitimized.
