World History Ancient Civilization

The Persian Empire was the world's first hyperpower, with territory stretching from Central Asia to Northeastern Africa and from Southeastern Europe to the Indus Valley. It was the dominant geopolitical force from the later sixth century to its conquest by Alexander in the 330s BCE. Much of the empire's territory was conquered by its founder, Cyrus the Great, who reigned from 559-530 BCE.

Thriving between AD 100-750, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, with a population estimated at upwards of 150,000-250,000, over three times the size of contemporary Mayan capitals. Furthermore, Teotihuacan was a supremely well-planned and efficient city that was able to field massive armies and extend its power far beyond its home base. Teotihuacan not only served as a vital center for trade in Ancient Mesoamerica, but also spread its architecture, art, religion, and culture.

The Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the fifth century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing. Joined here are the sheer drama of Herodotus' narrative of the Persian invasions of Greece, and the endless curiosity - turning now to cannabis, now to the Pyramids - which make his book the source of so much of our knowledge of the ancient world.

Not far from the Latakia, Syria, near the Mediterranean Sea coast, is the politically insignificant town of Burj al-Qasab. Throughout most of its history, Burj al-Qasab was overshadowed by Latakia, but this was not always the case. More than 3,000 years ago, on a hill known as Ras Sharma located just outside Burj al-Qasab, a sprawling metropolis much more important and powerful than Latakia, or most other modern cities in the region for that matter once existed. Ras Sharma was the location of Ugarit, an extremely wealthy and powerful Bronze Age city-state.

The study of ancient Greece has been central to Western conceptions of history since the Renaissance. The Muse of History traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation in the last three centuries, in which successive generations have reinterpreted the Greeks in the light of their contemporary worlds.

Geometry defines the world around us, helping us make sense of everything from architecture to military science to fashion. And for over 2,000 years, geometry has been equated with Euclid's Elements, arguably the most influential book in the history of mathematics. In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements.

In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.

Graham Hancock's multi-million best seller Fingerprints of the Gods remains an astonishing, deeply controversial, wide-ranging investigation of the mysteries of our past and the evidence for Earth's lost civilisation. Twenty years on, Hancock returns with a book filled with completely new, scientific and archaeological evidence, which has only recently come to light....

Tracing the migrations of the Denisovans and their interbreeding with Neanderthals and early human populations in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, Andrew Collins and Greg Little explore how the new mental capabilities of the Denisovan-Neanderthal and Denisovan-human hybrids greatly accelerated the flowering of human civilization over 40,000 years ago. They show how the Denisovans displayed sophisticated advances, including precision-machined stone tools and jewelry, tailored clothing, celestially-aligned architecture, and horse domestication.

Among the extensive writing available about the history of ancient Greece, there is precious little about the city-state of Thebes. 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.

Take an unforgettable journey into one of the most heretical, blasphemous, and controversial accounts of the Exodus in a world beyond imagination. The Exodus & Beyond picks up the mystery of the divine Twin Brothers of legend and their connection to the great Exodus out of Egypt where the first book, UNLOCKING THE DREAM VISION: The secret history of creation, left off. Within its pages, you will learn the importance of the divine Twin Brothers, along with the final secrets of the hidden history of humanity. It explores the last few lingering mysteries of the highly symbolic Dream Vision of ...

History of the World: Ancient History in Mesopotamia to Modern History - The Events, People, and Leaders that Shaped Our Planet offers a tantalizing glimpse of our vast and varied history that is sure to inspire further study. Along the way, you will glimpse the intertwining of culture that led to our modern technology, science, arts, religions, and literature; discovering how our ancestor’s belief systems, thoughts, and culture inform who we are today.

The Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire, was an unusual conqueror because it would absorb and assimilate elements of the cultures it dominated. A standing practice was to allow the defeated to continue practicing their culture and religion so long as they paid their taxes on time. Such a procedure was part of why Christianity would seep into the Roman Empire around the 1st century CE, for example. For the Etruscans, this meant they influenced aspects of Roman civilization, one of the most powerful cultures in the history of the Western world.

At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield.

From the late eighth century to somewhere around the middle of the 11th century, the history of Europe was dominated by the people who have become known as the Vikings. The Vikings were among the first global explorers who established territory that stretched from North America in the west to Constantinople in the east, and from the frigid wastes of the Arctic in the north to the warm shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the south.

The Toltecs are one of the most mysterious and little understood of all the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica. This culture was venerated by later civilizations, such as the Aztecs. Even today, “Toltec knowledge” is used as a kind of shorthand for arcane wisdom from an ancient culture. However, discussing the actual history of the Toltecs is extremely difficult. Much of what we know of these people comes from writings and oral traditions of the Aztecs, as translated and interpreted by the European invaders.

The Mitanni Empire came to prominence at a time when the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Assyrians were all angling for supremacy. Mitanni made alliances and conquered other lands, excelled at the military art of charioteering, suffered invasions, endured assassinations, and saw a dynasty rise and fall. For more than 3,000 years, the Mitanni Empire remained largely forgotten. Recently, archaeological excavations and translations of ancient texts have shed some light on these remarkable people who were the equals of their more-famous peers in Egypt, Hatti, and Assyria.

Discover 26 captivating stories of gods and goddesses from civilizations around the world in this audiobook that introduces children to ancient cultures. Young listeners will delight in myths that explain the beginning of the world, the way gods helped humans, the divine's power over weather and other natural phenomena, and much more. Through incredible storytelling you can learn how ancient cultures believed the world began, how gods have helped humans, how gods ruled over the natural world, and much more.

"La Breve historia de los gladiadores" narra como en los Ludi (escuelas de gladiadores) fornidos prisioneros de guerra, fugitivos o delincuentes se adiestraban en las técnicas de la lucha a muerte, se enfundaban sus armaduras de samnitas, secutores, reciarios, tracios, etc. y se lanzaban a la arena para conseguir la gloria o la muerte. Asimismo, se narra la historia del Coliseo romano, construido por Vespasiano, con un impresionante aforo para 50.000 espectadores que era abarrotado por hordas de ciudadanos romanos, patricios y plebeyos para aclamar a sus gladiadores preferidos.

Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.