Ancient English History

Ancient Rome matters. Its history of empire, conquest, cruelty and excess is something against which we still judge ourselves. Its myths and stories - from Romulus and Remus to the Rape of Lucretia - still strike a chord with us. And its debates about citizenship, security and the rights of the individual still influence our own debates on civil liberty today. SPQR is a new look at Roman history from one of the world's foremost classicists.

The history of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their kings is a story of epic heroes and villains. David was the God-chosen savior who fought giants, and the remarkable individual who inspired the world’s greatest artists to create their immortal sculptures and paintings. Solomon is regarded as the author of many of the proverbs that we still use - and the ancient sources say he was married to 70 foreign princesses. The protagonists of this book also include famous rulers of the ancient world, such as Queen of Sheba and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

This history will be of interest to people who know nothing about Japan, but also full of insights for those who do. Lesley Downer takes the listener through the great sweep of Japanese history, focusing on the dramatic stories of larger-than-life individuals—from emperors descended from the Sun Goddess to warlords, samurai, merchants, court ladies, women warriors, geisha, and businessmen who shaped this extraordinary modern society.

The foundations of modern knowledge - philosophy, math, astronomy, geography - were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean....

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.

A fresh account of some of history's greatest warriors. The Vikings had an extraordinary and far-reaching historical impact. From the eighth to the 11th centuries, they ranged across Europe - raiding, exploring, and colonizing - and their presence was felt as far away as Russia and Byzantium. They are most famous as warriors, yet perhaps their talent for warfare is too little understood.

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century A.D. at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam.

Marcus Porcius Cato: aristocrat who walked barefoot and slept on the ground with his troops, political heavyweight who cultivated the image of a Stoic philosopher, a hardnosed defender of tradition who presented himself as a man out of the sacred Roman past-and the last man standing when Rome's Republic fell to tyranny. His blood feud with Caesar began in the chamber of the Senate, played out on the battlefields of a world war, and ended when he took his own life rather than live under a dictator.

Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution.

Unlock the story of Rome like never before Step into the heart of the ancient world and experience the rise, reign, and remarkable transformation of one of history’s most powerful civilizations. Three manuscripts in one book: Roman Empire: An Enthralling Overview of Imperial Rome Roman Republic: An Enthralling Overview of the Rise and Fall The Byzantine Empire: An Enthralling Overview of the Byzantium Here’s just a tiny fraction of what you’ll discover inside: The dramatic rise of Augustus — and how he turned chaos into empire. Scandals, betrayals, and bloodshed in Rome’s ...

The darkness has found her again. Daria’s new position, as a language tutor to the wealthy and charming merchant Lucas, takes her to the dazzling city of Ephesus on the Aegean coast. As their connection deepens, Daria finds herself drawn to Lucas, despite the evil and violence that churn beneath the city's beauty. A collision is coming, between the high priests of Artemis, the sorcerers who pursue arcane knowledge, and a new movement called The Way, centered around the Jewish martyr, Jesus. Daria longs to remain apart, safe from the evil she barely escaped in the past, but her growing ...

At the time of his death in 1927, John Bagnell Bury was easily the most honored English historian of his era. Bury, an esteemed Cambridge scholar, wrote what is considered the finest one-volume history of ancient Greece in the English language. His beautifully crafted survey of Greek civilization begins with the description of Bronze Age settlements which appeared on the Greek mainland and on the island of Crete. The story takes us on a strange and exciting series of adventures which result in the development of independent city-states constantly embroiled in division and war.

One of the principal theological themes of the Hebrew Bible is the relationship between Israel and God. At the heart of this bond is the supernatural experience at Sinai. The Torah focuses on the uniqueness of God and His relationship with the people of Israel. The singularity of this relationship amidst surrounding polytheistic cultures is so much emphasized that Israel’s principal contribution to the world of religious ideology is often regarded as uncompromising covenantal monotheism. Israelite identity and in later centuries Jewish identity was also expressed in terms of ethnicity and...

This book offers a fresh insight into the conquests of Alexander the Great by attempting to view the events of 336-323 BCE from the vantage point of the defeated.

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.

The Annals, the last and greatest achievement of Tacitus, records the history of the Julio-Claudian emperors from the death of Augustus (A.D. 14) to the reign of Nero (54–68). These are stories of mutiny and murder, of whole armies disappearing beyond the Rhine, of an unstable and gloomy frontier. Tacitus brings us Nero himself, whose reign saw the burning of Rome and the mass slaughter of Christians, and whose vices still captivate and startle us with their imagination and cruelty.

In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelt, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In The Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland explores how this came about.

Frenzied crowds, talking ravens, the stench of the Tiber River: life in ancient Rome was stimulating, dynamic, and often downright dangerous. The Romans relaxed and gossiped in baths, stole precious water from aqueducts, and partied and dined to excess. From the smells of fragrant cookshops and religious sacrifices to the cries of public executions and murderous electoral mobs, Guy de la Bedoyere's Populus draws on a host of historical and literary sources to transport us into the intensity of daily life at the height of ancient Rome.

Do you know that the Sumerians believed that: The moon was actually a god child conceived unintentionally by the God Enlil and a maid? Or that humans were first created to do the chores on earth for the Gods and Goddesses? The ancient Sumerians lived a difficult life, and this is reflected in their myths. However, also reflected in their stories is their love for justice and the values which they most supported, among them beauty, honor, and truthfulness.

In ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common - murder. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside ancient Rome’s darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life and death and what it means to be human.