Ancient History Culture

Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.

Go beyond the popular stories of Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Inca, and the Maya, and uncover the rich diversity of people that are often overlooked. From the world's first peace treaty to daring expeditions across the Pacific, learn about twenty ancient and historic cultures from around the world that have had monumental impacts on our modern world.

With his characteristic clarity and elegance A. C. Grayling takes the listener from the worldviews and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, through Christianity's dominance of the European mind, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre and philosophy today. And, since the story of philosophy is incomplete without mention of the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world, he gives a comparative survey of them, too.

Legends of Norse Mythology is your practical guide for navigating the Norse realms and revealing the origins of these mythical stories, ranging from the gripping narratives of revered gods to Viking sagas of the Scandinavian seafaring adventures with longships, to the timeless rituals of the Nordic people.

When people think of ancient Greece, images of philosophers such as Plato or Socrates often come to mind, as do great warriors like Pericles and Alexander the Great. But hundreds of years before Athens became a city, a Greek culture flourished and spread its tentacles throughout the Western Mediterranean region via trade and warfare. Scholars have termed this preclassical Greek culture the Mycenaean culture.

When people think of ancient Italy, the Romans are usually the first and last people that come to mind, but long before Rome was built by Latin-speaking people, the culture of Italy was dominated by the Etruscans. Although the Etruscans may not comprise the core of most histories of the ancient Mediterranean, they exerted a profound influence on the region from the 8th-5th centuries BCE that continued to resonate for centuries after as the Romans carried on many of their traditions.

Can anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing. It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect.

In a book that took eight years to research and write, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things.

Are history books giving us the whole story? Or is civilization far more complex and for older than we have been taught? Our school textbooks barely mention the 6,000-year-old Sumerian civilization, yet the latest archaeological findings at sites such as Jericho, and most recently, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, have been dated to 10,000 BC. Civilization goes back at least another 10,000 years, if we are willing to believe what our ancestors themselves claimed.

Sourdough bread fueled the labor that built the Egyptian pyramids. The Roman Empire distributed free sourdough loaves to its citizens to maintain political stability. More recently, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, sourdough bread baking became a global phenomenon as people contended with being confined to their homes and sought distractions from their fear, uncertainty, and grief. In Sourdough Culture, environmental science professor Eric Pallant shows how throughout history, sourdough bread baking has always been about survival.

Peter Frankopan, number one best-selling author and historian, explores the connections made by people, trade, disease, war, religion, adventure, science and technology in this extraordinary book about how the East married the West with a remarkable voyage at its heart - the journey along the Silk Roads.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later.

Of all the peoples of the ancient Near East, the Phoenicians are among the most recognizable but also perhaps the least understood. The Phoenicians never built an empire like the Egyptians and Assyrians; in fact, the Phoenicians never created a unified Phoenician state. Instead, they existed as independent city-state kingdoms scattered throughout the Mediterranean region.

Stonehenge is just one of thousands of stone circles erected throughout Britain and Ireland for over three millennia from 3,000 BC on. How did this building tradition survive for so long, over such a large area and with such complexity and uniformity, when the people of the British Isles lived in separate, isolated communities? Graham Phillips argues that these stone circles are evidence of an astonishing system of healthcare and preservation of ancient medical knowledge that held together a society scattered across the British Isles.

All in all, Japan seems to be a country of paradoxes and oppositions, of yin and yang. Yet it doesn’t seem to suffer from it; instead, it is thriving, growing, and developing, and it has been doing so for a long time. From those contradictions, a sense of unity and pride arose, guiding Japanese history and civilizational development through the ages, leaving an unquestionable mark on the world heritage and mankind. But this is only the surface of an astonishing culture that deserves a deeper look.

In 431 BC, the long simmering rivalry between the city-states of Athens and Sparta erupted into open warfare, and for more than a generation the two were locked in a life-and-death struggle. The war embroiled the entire Greek world, provoking years of butchery previously unparalleled in ancient Greece. Whole cities were exterminated, their men killed, their women and children enslaved.

Ancient Egypt, сivilizаtiоn in nоrthеаѕtеrn Afriса thаt dates from the 4th millеnnium BCE. Itѕ mаnу асhiеvеmеntѕ, preserved in its art аnd mоnumеntѕ, hоld a fascination thаt continues to grоw as аrсhаеоlоgiсаl finds expose its ѕесrеtѕ. This book fосuѕеѕ оn Egурt from itѕ prehistory thrоugh itѕ unifiсаtiоn undеr Mеnеѕ (Nаrmеr) in thе 3rd millennium BCE - sometimes uѕеd аѕ a reference point for Egурt’ѕ оrigin - аnd up tо the Islamic соnԛuеѕt in thе 7th сеnturу CE.

Lionel Casson paints a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome - for slaves and emperors, soldiers and commanders alike - during the empire's greatest period, the first and second centuries AD.

When we think of Ancient Egypt, we picture movies with mazes, pyramids, traps, mummies, and symbols. And although some of these things were definitely part of it, there is so much more to this ancient civilization. Ancient Egypt was a North African society that grew in the lower banks of the Nile River, in what's now the nation of Egypt. Let’s explore some of the most important features of that society today, and try to grasp what transpired in the culture, the thoughts, the problems, and the development of the Egyptian region more than 5,000 years ago.

The Celts are one of the most well-known groups in Europe and one of the least understood. Depending on which classifications are used, the Celts are also one of the oldest civilizations in Europe. In the centuries before Christ, the Celts were spread out across much of continental Europe, and though they are mostly identified with Gaul, evidence suggests they also spread as far as Portugal.