Ancient Worlds

"As panoramic as it is learned, this is ancient history for our globalized world." Tom Holland, author of Dynasty and Rubicon Twenty-five-hundred years ago, civilizations around the world entered a revolutionary new era that overturned old order and laid the foundation for our world today. In the face of massive social changes across three continents, radical new forms of government emerged; mighty wars were fought over trade, religion, and ideology; and new faiths were ruthlessly employed to unify vast empires. The histories of Rome and China, Greece and India-the stories of Constantine and Confucius, Qin Shi Huangdi and Hannibal-are here revealed to be interconnected incidents in the midst of a greater drama. In Ancient Worlds, historian Michael Scott presents a gripping narrative of this unique age in human civilization, showing how diverse societies responded to similar pressures and how they influenced one another: through conquest and conversion, through trade in people, goods, and ideas. An ambitious reinvention of our grandest histories, Ancient Worlds reveals new truths about our common human heritage. "A bold and imaginative page-turner that challenges ideas about the world of antiquity." Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

Across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta, awe-inspiring, monstrous ruins are scattered across the landscape - vast palaces, temples, fortresses, shattered statues of ancient gods, carvings praising the eternal power of long-forgotten dynasties. These ruins - the remainder of thousands of years of human civilization - are both inspirational in their grandeur, and terrible in that their once teeming centres of population were all ultimately destroyed and abandoned. In this major book, Richard Miles recreates these extraordinary cities, ranging from the Euphrates to the Roman Empire, to understand the roots of human civilization. His challenge is to make us understand that the cities which define culture, religion and economic success and which are humanity's greatest invention, have always had a cruel edge to them, building systems that have provided both amazing opportunities and back-breaking hardship. This exhilarating book is both a pleasure to read and a challenge to us all to think about our past - and about the present.

Exciting nonfiction stories of intrepid archaeologists and their amazing discoveries from history, written by archaeology YouTuber Stefan Milosavljevich.

The Book of the Ancient World is an account of our common heritage from the dawn of civilization to the coming of the Greeks. It is the story of how human beings began their great adventure of learning how to live; of how they have sought to satisfy the practical needs of their bodies, the questioning of their minds, and the searching of their spirits. To this end it subordinates details of political events to the record of things that lie at the foundation or our modern civilization. Dorothy Mills had an uncanny and unique ability to write history that is interesting and at the same time based on sound scholarship. Her direct, engaging approach is valued increasingly by the many parents in our day who are looking for reliable materials for home study, as well as by many private school educators. The highly-prized six volumes of her historical works (see below) have become very scarce on the used book market, and so Dawn Chorus has undertaken to reprint them as part of its effort to offer texts ideally suited to the needs of a new generation of teachers and students. In a world where the quality of education has so deteriorated, may the reissue of this wonderful historical series shine as a beacon to a new generation of young (and not so young) scholars . Dawn Chorus publishes these five other books by Dorothy Mills: The Book of the Ancient Greeks; The Book of the Ancient Romans; The People of Ancient Israel; The Middle Ages; and Renaissance and Reformation Times. Dawn Chorus has also republished another outstanding, and long-out-of-print historical series perfectly suited for home or school use (and highly recommended in home-school curricula), entitled The Picturesque Tale of Progress, by Olive Beaupre Miller. It is available in large format (9 volumes), or smaller, double-bound format (5 volumes).

Jeffrey Richards examines the cultural, social, economic and technological circumstances that dictated the rise and decline of each successive cycle of Ancient World epics, from the silent film era, to the "golden age" of the 1950s, right up to the present day (Gladiator, 300, Rome). Analysis reveals that historical films are always as much about the time in which they are made as they are about the time in which they are set. The ancient world is often used to deliver messages to the contemporary audience about the present: hostility to totalitarian regimes both Fascist and Communist, concern at the decline of Christianity, support for the new state of Israel, celebrations of equality and democracy, and concern about changing gender roles. The whole adds up to a fresh look at a body of films that people think they know, but about which they will learn a good deal more.

Integrating the results of scholarly work from the past decade, the authors of An Introduction to the Ancient World, Lukas de Blois and R.J. van der Spek, have fully-updated and revised all sixteen chapters of this best-selling introductory textbook. Covering the history and culture of the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome within the framework of a short narrative history of events, this book offers an easily readable, integrated overview for students of history, classics, archaeology and philosophy, whether at college, at undergraduate level or among the wider reading public. This revised second edition offers a new section on early Christianity and more specific information on the religions, economies, and societies of the ancient Near East. There is extended coverage of Greek, Macedonian and Near Eastern history of the fourth to second centuries BC and the history of the Late Roman Republic. The consequences of Julius Caesar’s violent death are covered in more detail, as are the history and society of Imperial Rome. This new edition is: comprehensive: covers 3,000 years of ancient history and provides the basis for a typical one-semester course lavishly illustrated: contains maps, line drawings and plates to support and supplement the text, with updated captions clearly and concisely written: two established and respected university teachers with thirty years' experience in the subject areas well-organized: traces the broad outline of political history but also concentrates on particular topics user-friendly: includes chapter menus, an extensive and expanded bibliography organized by subject area and three appendices, an improved introduction and the addition of an epilogue.

This volume reinvigorates the field of Classical Reception by investigating present-day culture, society, and politics, particularly gender, gender roles, and filmic constructions of masculinity and femininity which shape and are shaped by interacting economic, political, and ideological practices.

This reference tells the stories of the peoples of the ancient past and shows how they laid the foundations of the modern world. Each of the first five chapters looks at the cultures and civilizations that developed in one particular region. The last chapter looks at some general aspects of life in the ancient world, such as agriculture or legal codes, and examines them in different cultures. A time line shows how civilizations in different parts of the world relate to each other in time. Nicely illustrated with many color images. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR