Fagan was born in England where he received his childhood education at Rugby School[1]. He attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied archaeology and anthropology (BA 1959, MA 1962, PhD 1965). His doctoral thesis was titled "Some Iron Age cultures of the Southern Province, Northern Rhodesia, with special reference to the Kalomo Culture".[2] He spent six years as Keeper of Prehistory at the Livingstone Museum in Zambia, Central Africa, and moved to the USA in 1966.
Fagan is an archaeological generalist, with expertise in the broad issues of human prehistory. He is the author or editor of 46 books, including seven widely used undergraduate college texts. Fagan has contributed over 100 specialist papers to many national and international journals. He is a Contributing Editor to Archaeology Worldwide,[4]American Archaeology and Discover Archaeology magazines, and formerly wrote a regular column for Archaeology Magazine. He serves on the Editorial Boards of six academic and general periodicals and has many popular magazine credits, including Scientific American and Gentleman's Quarterly.
Unlike most scholars at research universities, Fagan chose to regularly teach large introductory archaeology classes to undergraduates at Santa Barbara. Avoiding traditional lecture formats, he experimented with technology to provide basic information as early as the 1970s, leaving his class periods for wide ranging discussions of interest to students.
In conjunction with this interest in college teaching, Fagan began writing an extensive series of archaeology textbooks beginning in 1972 that are still in print in recent editions decades after their initial publication. These include In the Beginning (13th edition, 2013, with Nadia Durrani), People of the Earth (15th edition, 2018, with Nadia Durrani), Ancient North America (5th edition, 2019), Ancient Lives (7th edition, 2020, with Nadia Durrani), World Prehistory (9th edition, 2016, with Nadia Durrani), Ancient Civilizations (4th edition, 2016, with Chris Scarre), and Archaeology: A Brief Introduction (12th edition, 2016, with Nadia Durrani).
In addition to extensive experience with the development of Public Television programs, Fagan was the developer/writer of Patterns of the Past, an NPR series in 1984–86. He has worked as a consultant for the BBC, RKO, and many Hollywood production companies on documentaries. In 1995 he was Senior Series Consultant for Time-Life Television's "Lost Civilizations" series. Fagan was awarded the 1996 Society of Professional Archaeologists' Distinguished Service Award for his "untiring efforts to bring archaeology in front of the public." He also received a Presidential Citation Award from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996 for his work in textbook, general writing and media activities. He received the Society's first Public Education Award in 1997.
Over the years, Fagan has written a series of well-known textbooks that provide accurate summaries of the latest advances in archaeological method and theory and world prehistory. These are designed for beginners and avoid both confusing jargon and major theoretical discussion, which is inappropriate at this basic level. His approach melds traditional cultural history with more recent approaches, with a major emphasis on writing historical narrative using archaeological data and sources from other disciplines.
Fagan is also well known for his public lectures on a wide variety of archaeological and historical topics, delivered to a broad range of archaeological and non-archaeological audiences. He has written many critiques of contemporary archaeology and has advocated non-traditional approaches, as well as writing extensively on the role of archaeology in contemporary society. His approach is a melding of different theoretical approaches, which focuses on the broad issues of human prehistory and the past. He is a strong advocate of multidisciplinary approaches to such issues as climate change in the past.
An avid sailor since childhood, Fagan wrote sailing guides to many locations on the Pacific coast of the United States and published them under his own imprint. Now retired from UC Santa Barbara, he lives in the Santa Barbara area with his wife, one of his two daughters, and numerous cats and rabbits.
Quest for the Past: Great Discoveries in Archaeology. Boston: Addison Wesley, 1978 (paperback, ISBN0-201-03111-6). (Second Edition published Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1994)
The Aztecs. W. H. Freeman and Company, 1984 (paperback, ISBN0-7167-1585-6).
(editor) Eyewitness to Discovery: First-Person Accounts of More Than Fifty of the World's Greatest Archaeological Discoveries. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 1997 (hardcover, ISBN0-19-508141-2); 1999 (paperback, ISBN0-19-512651-3).
(editor) The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World: Unlocking the Secrets of Past Civilizations. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001 (paperback, ISBN0-500-51050-4).
The Cruising Guide to Central and Southern California: Golden Gate to Ensenada, Mexico, Including the Offshore Islands International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press, 2001 (paperback, ISBN978-0071374644).
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–1850. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (hardcover, ISBN0-465-02271-5); 2001 (paperback, ISBN0-465-02272-3).
Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations (2003) The Great Courses.
The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 2003 (hardcover, ISBN0-465-02281-2); 2004 (paperback, ISBN0-465-02282-0).
A Brief History of Archaeology: Classical Times to the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004 (paperback, ISBN0-13-177698-3).
(editor) The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN0-500-05130-5).
Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2005 (hardcover, ISBN0-19-517043-1).
Writing Archaeology: Telling Stories About the Past. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2005 (hardcover, ISBN1-59874-004-0; paperback ISBN1-59874-005-9).
From Stonehenge to Samarkand: An Anthology of Archaeological Travel Writing. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2006 (hardcover, ISBN0-19-516091-6).
Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, And Discovery of the New World. New York: Basic Books, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN0-465-02284-7; paperback, ISBN0-465-02285-5).
"Interview". Archived from the original on 20 October 2007. Retrieved 1 October 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) with Brian Fagan at the Society for California Archaeology
