150 and c. 750, came to differ from "Classical civilization."These centuries, as the author demonstrates, were the era in which the most deeply rooted of ancient institutions disappeared for all time. By 476 the Roman empire had vanished from western Europe; by 655 the Persian empire had vanished from the Near East.Peter Brown, Professor of History at Princeton University, examines these changes and men's reactions to them, but his account shows that the period was also one of outstanding new beginnings and defines the far-reaching impact both of Christianity on Europe and of Islam on the Near East. The result is a lucid answer to a crucial question in world history; how the exceptionally homogeneous Mediterranean world of c. 200 became divided into the three mutually estranged societies of the Middle Ages: Catholic Western Europe, Byzantium and Islam. We still live with the results of these contrasts.

    Encompassing a grand sweep of human history, A History of the World in 100 Objects begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with objects which characterise the world we live in today. Seen through MacGregor's eyes, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. A stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people; Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency; and an early Victorian tea-set speaks to us about the impact of empire. An intellectual and visual feast, this is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years. 'Brilliant, engagingly written, deeply researched' Mary Beard, Guardian 'A triumph: hugely popular, and rightly lauded as one of the most effective and intellectually ambitious initiatives in the making of 'public history' for many decades' Sunday Telegraph 'Highly intelligent, delightfully written and utterly absorbing ' Timothy Clifford, Spectator 'This is a story book, vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks and delights' Gillian Reynolds Daily Telegraph

    The book is informed by a wide knowledge of the Asian context and an approach devoid of Euro-centric bias. The book also examines the many non-Chinese elements in China's history, such as the impact of Buddhism, foreign trade, etc.

    Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and of spirit that our mind and spirit today are different... What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpasses and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."A perennial favorite in many different editions, Edith Hamilton's best-selling The Greek Way captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C. A retired headmistress when she began her writing career in the 1930s, Hamilton immediately demonstrated a remarkable ability to bring the world of ancient Greece to life, introducing that world to the twentieth century. The New York Times called The Greek Way a "book of both cultural and critical importance."

    He reveals 20-million-year-old quartzite tools discovered in the remains of extinct fauna in Argentina and other evidence of ancient pre-human cultures from which we are not descended. He traces the genesis of modern human civilization to Indonesia and the Central Pacific 75,000 years ago, launched by a catastrophic volcanic eruption that abruptly reduced humanity from two million to a few thousand individuals worldwide.Further investigating the evolutionary branches of humanity, he explores the mounting biological evidence supporting the aquatic ape theory--that our ancestors spent one or more evolutionary phases in water--and shows how these aquatic phases of humanity fall neatly into place within his revised timeline of ancient history. Examining the profound similarities of megaliths around the world, including Nabta Playa, Gobekli Tepe, Stonehenge, New Hampshire’s Mystery Hill, and the Japanese Oyu circles, the author explains how these precisely placed monuments of quartz were built specifically to produce altered states of consciousness, revealing the spiritual and technological sophistication of their Neolithic builders--a transoceanic civilization fractured by the cataclysmic effects of comets.Tying in his extensive research into Atlantis and Lemuria, Joseph provides a 20-million-year timeline of the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, both human and pre-human, the evolutionary stages of humanity, and the catastrophes and resulting climate changes that triggered them all--events that our relatively young civilization may soon experience.

    Schama, the author of the highly acclaimed Citizens and The Embarrassment of Riches, is one of the most popular and celebrated historians of our day, and in this magnificent work he brings history to dramatic life with a wealth of stories and vivid, colorful detail, reanimating familiar figures and events and drawing them skillfully into a powerful and compelling narrative. Schama's perspective moves from the birth of civilization to the Norman Conquest; through the religious wars and turbulance of the Middle Ages to the sovereignties of Henry II, Richard I and King John; through the outbreak of the Black Death, which destroyed nearly half of Europe's population, through the reign of Edward I and the growth of national identity in Wales and Scotland, to the intricate conflicts of the Tudors and the clash between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Driven by the drama of the stories themselves but exploring at the same time a network of interconnected themes--the formation of a nation state, the cyclical nature of power, the struggles between the oppressors and the oppressed--this is a superbly readable and illuminating account of a great nation, and its extraordinary history.

    World-class interpretations exist of its Classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture and economies first came into being, despitethe fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 BC. This book is the first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times, bywhich time the Middle Sea was already in effect made.Thanks to unrivalled depth and breadth of exploration, Mediterranean archaeology is one of the world's richest sources for the reconstruction of ancient societies. This book is the first to draw in equal measure on ideas and information from the European, western Asian and African flanks, as well asthe islands at the Mediterranean's heart, to achieve a truly innovative focus on the varied trajectories and interactions that created this maritime world.The Mediterranean combines unusual conditions in a strictly unique fashion that goes a long way towards explaining its precocious development: it is the world's largest inland sea, easily the largest of the five challenging, opportunity-rich mediterraneoid environments on the planet, and adjacentto the riverine cores of two of the earliest civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt. No wonder its societies proved exceptional.Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations--Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek--the book is a masterpiece ofarchaeological and historical writing.

    It's about reaching back in time, to find ourselves, and our place in the world.We often think of Britain springing from nowhere with the arrival of the Romans. But in Ancestors, pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons - from their burial sites. Although we have very little evidence of what life was like in prehistorical times, here their stories are told through the bones and funerary offerings left behind, preserved in the ground for thousands of years.Told through seven fascinating burial sites, this groundbreaking prehistory of Britain teaches us more about ourselves and our history: how people came and went; how we came to be on this island.

    This comprehensive survey of Egyptian society and history transforms our understanding of this remarkable civilisation.

    An archaeological and linguistic monograph on the origins and expansion of the Indo-European

    Bronowski's exciting, illustrated investigation offers a perspective not just on science, but on civilization itself. Lower than the angelsForewordThe harvest of the seasons The grain in the stoneThe hidden structure The music of the spheresThe starry messanger The majestic clockworkThe drive for power The ladder of creation World within world Knowledge or certainty Generation upon generationThe long childhoodBibliographyIndex

    Every aspect of Stonehenge is re-considered in Aubrey Burl's new analysis. He explains for the first time how the outlying Heel Stone long predates Stonehenge itself, serving as a trackway marker in the prehistoric Harroway. He uncovers new evidence that the Welsh bluestones were brought to Stonehenge by glaciation rather than by man. And he reveals just how far the design of Stonehenge was influenced by Breton styles and by Breton cults of the dead. Meticulously research sets the record straight on the matter of Stonehenge's astronomical alignments. Although the existence of a sightline to the midsummer sunrise is well known, the alignment and the viewing-position are different from popular belief. And the existence of an earlier alignment to the moon and a later one to the midwinter sunset has been largely unrealized. One almost unexplained puzzle remains. The site of Stonehenge lies at the heart of a vast six-mile wide graveyard, but before it was built there appears to have been a mysterious gap two miles across on that site.Burl argues that earlier totem-pole style constructions served a ceremonial purpose for the living - to celebrate success in the hunt.

    As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they reshaped the world between eastern North America and the Asian steppe. For a millennium, though, their history has largely been filtered through the writings of their victims. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology, their art and culture. From Björn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most travelled woman in the world, Price shows us the real Vikings, not the caricatures they have become in popular culture and history.

    In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic Era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion.   Setting forth a chronological narrative, Hutton along the way makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites—Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey—as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive “why” of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain’s deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights.

    But as different as the Han culture might have been to other great ancient civilizations, the inhabitants of ancient China faced the same problems as people have for time immemorial: earning enough money, coping with workplace dramas and keeping your home in order … although the equivalent in this era was more about bribing inspectors, avoiding bullying from abusive watchmen and trying to keep your house from being looted by Huns. In each chapter we meet one of 24 citizens of this ancient culture, from the midwife to the soldier, the priest to the performer and the bronze worker to the tomb looter, and see what an average day in ancient China was really like.