When Rocks Cry Out


Horace Butler - 2002
    Uncovered ancient maps and writings show the real ruins of four of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World that were thought to have vanished from the earth. The secrets hidden within those Wonders explode the very foundations of what we thought we knew about the world and where we had come from. Listed by the Dallas Community Colleges as a "must read," WHEN ROCKS CRY OUT ties together riddles from the Old Testament with ruins of abandoned cities that are thousands of years old...and thousands of miles away from where we thought those cities would be. Often reading like a page-turning novel, this could be one of the most important books written in the last 500 years. From the discovery of Egypt's lost ancient capital, Memphis, to a stunning hidden burial city built by the Pharaohs, to the secret ruins of King David's famed city, this book moves past recent promises about 'codes' and brings you to the real-life secret that was the explosive reason for the creation of the codes. Da Vinci's Code? Solomon's Key? Those clever puzzles can't reach the significance of the mysteries unraveled in this book. And the things in this book are real! WHEN ROCKS CRY OUT...it is a book for those who have reached a point in their life when they just want to know the truth. Finally, we can trace where our 'blood' has been and what our 'blood' has done.

The Ancient Guide to Modern Life


Natalie Haynes - 2010
    In this thoroughly engaging book, Natalie Haynes brings her scholarship and wit to the most fascinating true stories of the ancient world. The Ancient Guide to Modern Life not only reveals the origins of our culture in areas including philosophy, politics, language, and art, it also draws illuminating connections between antiquity and our present time, to demonstrate that the Greeks and Romans were not so different from ourselves: is Bart Simpson the successor to Aristophanes? Do the Beckhams have parallel lives with The Satiricon's Trimalchio? Along the way Haynes debunks myths (gladiators didn't salute the emperor before their deaths, and the last words of Julius Caesar weren't "et tu, brute?") from Athens to Zeno's paradox, this irresistible guide shows how the history and wisdom of the ancient world can inform and enrich our lives today.

Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece


Paul Anthony Cartledge - 2020
    At one point the most powerful city in ancient Greece, Thebes has been long overshadowed by its better-known rivals, Athens and Sparta. In Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, acclaimed classicist and historian Paul Cartledge brings the city vividly to life and argues that it is central to our understanding of the ancient Greeks’ achievements—whether politically or culturally—and thus to the wider politico-cultural traditions of western Europe, the Americas, and indeed the world.   From its role as an ancient political power, to its destruction at the hands of Alexander the Great as punishment for a failed revolt, to its eventual restoration by Alexander’s successor, Cartledge deftly chronicles the rise and fall of the ancient city. He recounts the history with deep clarity and mastery for the subject and makes clear both the differences and the interconnections between the Thebes of myth and the Thebes of history. Written in clear prose and illustrated with images in two color inserts, Thebes is a gripping read for students of ancient history and those looking to experience the real city behind the myths of Cadmus, Hercules, and Oedipus.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World


Peter Frankopan - 2015
    The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties are being strengthened and mutual cooperation established.This prescient contemporary history provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of continual shifts in the centre of power – all too often absent from headlines in the west.The New Silk Roads asks us to re-examine who we are and where we stand in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.The Silk Roads, a major reassessment of world history, has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure


Nicholas Reeves - 1990
    It remains the greatest tombfind ever made. Here is the fullest account yet published of this fabulous archaeological discovery. Contents include:--the story of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon's long quest for the tomb in the Valley of the Kings--double-page features on each stage of the discovery, each chamber of the tomb, and all the main treasures--extracts from Carter's notes and diaries and first-time publication of many of his drawings and reconstructions--tables on everything from the ornaments on the royal mummy to Tutankhamun's wine list--a full reference section"Bound to hook you on the 'boy-king' and his rich tomb all over again." -KMT"The most satisfying work to date." -American Journal of ArchaeologyA renowned Egyptologist and one of the world's leading experts on the period, Nicholas Reeves was for several years a Curator in the Departament of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum. His books include Valley of the Kings: The Decline of a Royal Necropolis and - with Richard H. Wilkinson - The Complete Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt's Greatest Pharaohs (Thames & Hudson).

The Religion of Ancient Egypt


William Matthew Flinders Petrie - 1906
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages


Dan Jones - 2021
    In a gripping narrative bursting with big names--from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine--Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first contact between the old and new worlds in the sixteenth century.The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when our basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change. At each stage in this story, successive western powers thrived by attracting--or stealing--the most valuable resources, ideas, and people from the rest of the world.The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the region and the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years of Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, the legacy and lessons of how we got here matter more than ever.

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt


Kara Cooney - 2018
    Regularly, repeatedly, and with impunity, queens like Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra controlled the totalitarian state as power-brokers and rulers. But throughout human history, women in positions of power were more often used as political pawns in a male-dominated society. What was so special about ancient Egypt that provided women this kind of access to the highest political office? What was it about these women that allowed them to transcend patriarchal obstacles? What did Egypt gain from its liberal reliance on female leadership, and could today's world learn from its example?Celebrated Egyptologist Kara Cooney delivers a fascinating tale of female power, exploring the reasons why it has seldom been allowed through the ages, and why we should care.

Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future


Ian Morris - 2010
    The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West’s rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global supremacy. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many worry that the emerging economic power of China and India spells the end of the West as a superpower. In order to understand this possibility, we need to look back in time. Why has the West dominated the globe for the past two hundred years, and will its power last?Describing the patterns of human history, the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris offers surprising new answers to both questions. It is not, he reveals, differences of race or culture, or even the strivings of great individuals, that explain Western dominance. It is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, the world will change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process.Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why the West Rules—for Now spans fifty thousand years of history and offers fresh insights on nearly every page. The book brings together the latest findings across disciplines—from ancient history to neuroscience—not only to explain why the West came to rule the world but also to predict what the future will bring in the next hundred years.

Ages in Chaos: A reconstruction of ancient history from the Exodus to King Akhnaton


Immanuel Velikovsky - 1952
    Velikovsky had put forward his ideas briefly in Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History in 1945, but Ages in Chaos was his first full-length work on the subject.A second volume was due for publication shortly after this but was postponed. Instead it was followed eight years later by Oedipus and Akhnaton. In the last two years of his life Velikovsky published a further two works on ancient history: Peoples of the Sea and Rameses II and His Time. At the time of his death he considered that completing his reconstruction of ancient history would require a further two volumes: The Assyrian Conquest and The Dark Age of Greece; these were never published in English, but the manuscripts have long been available online at the Velikovsky archive. [1]Velikovsky claimed in Ages in Chaos that the histories of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Israel are five centuries out of step. His starting point was that the Exodus took place not, as orthodoxy has it, at some point during the Egyptian New Kingdom, but at the fall of the Middle Kingdom. Velikovsky made heavy use in this and later works on ancient history of the concept of "ghost doubles": historical figures who were known by different names in two different sources (e.g. Egyptian and Greek) and were conventionally considered to be entirely different people living in different centuries, but who he proposed to be actually erroneously dated accounts of the same individuals and events.Velikovsky's work has been harshly criticised, including by fellow chronological revisionists such as Peter James. In 1984 fringe science expert Henry H. Bauer wrote Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy, which Time described as "the definitive treatise debunking Immanuel Velikovsky".

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe


Norman Davies - 2011
    We habitually think of the European past as the history of countries which exist today - France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on - but often this actually obstructs our view of the past, and blunts our sensitivity to the ever-changing political landscape. Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age - 'the Empire of Aragon' which once dominated the western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for a time the largest country in Europe; the successive kingdoms (and one duchy) of Prussia, much of whose history is now half-remembered at best. This book shows the reader how to peer through the cracks of mainstream history writing and listen to the echoes of lost realms across the centuries.

The Dream of Rome


Boris Johnson - 2006
    Focuses on how the Romans made Europe work as a homogeneous civilisation and provides a look at why we are failing to make the EU work in modern times.

America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization


Graham Hancock - 2019
    Could shattering secrets about the deep past of humanity await discovery in North America? Until very recently there was almost universal agreement amongst scientists that human beings first entered the Americas from Siberia around 13,000 years ago by walking into Alaska across the Bering landbridge. Thanks to scientific advances, and to archaeological and geological discoveries made in the past five years, we now know that the Americas were populated by humans for tens of thousands of years before the previously accepted date. Deeply puzzling and hitherto unsuspected genetic connections have also emerged - for example linking Native Americans both with Australian Aborigines and with Western Europeans. In the final volume of The Fingerprints of the Gods trilogy he puts the final piece of the jigsaw in place, proving that the great, technically advanced civilisation that flourished in Britain and Europe and throughout the world before the last Ice Age was centred in Northern America.

Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization


Richard Miles - 2011
    The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the ancient world. In an epic series of land and sea battles, both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally succumbed and their capital city, history, and culture were almost utterly erased. Drawing on a wealth of new archaeological research, Richard Miles brings to life this lost empire-from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as the greatest seapower in the Mediterranean. And at the heart of the history of Carthage lies the extraordinary figure of Hannibal-the scourge of Rome and one of the greatest military leaders, but a man who also unwittingly led his people to catastrophe.

The Trojan War: A New History


Barry S. Strauss - 2006
    Although many readers know that this literary masterwork is based on actual events, there is disagreement about how much of Homer's tale is true. Drawing on recent archeological research, historian and classicist Barry Strauss explains what really happened in Troy more than 3,000 years ago.