The History of the Ancient World

From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

By: Susan Wise Bauer

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own.

This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled. The result is an engrossing tapestry of human behavior from which we may draw conclusions about the direction of world events and the causes behind them.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2007 Susan Wise Bauer (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

It got me started down a history rabbit hole.

Incredible performance, punchy & pithy in content; all around the perfect primer of the world's early years. the context of this & the following books in this series has helped me build a cogent structure to the events leading up to & following the advent of early man's progress from clan to community. at times a very funny book it never punches down to pander.

Very intricate

I am fascinated by ancient history but I found this to jump around from civilization to civilization and the names, dynasties and internecine murders,
mergers and wars were at times very tedious. Well read and as our history a good story but overall it is only for the persistent and Geeky.

Good, but too much info to retain much.

I enjoyed this book. The writing and the performance keep the audiobook from being too boring. That being said, it covers an insane amount of time, and even in 36 hours, it provides so much information it's difficult to retain much of the information. As an overall theme theme though, that humanity is really good at repeating the same mistakes, it is effective.

A fast-paced and vivid narrative history

Very fast-paced and vivid, a roller coaster ride through the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, struggles for power, battles and wars, with attention to the human aspect of individual protagonists and the interweaving of myth, religion and historical events.

History of Ancient World

Was a good book learned a lot I had previous not known. China & India history was included

Wish I had the time to realy study it.

I regreat that I do not have the time to realy delve into, and study this history, as it deserves.

Covered so much

Amazing book that covered so much history. It was also able to do mini dive ins of major characters

Good but feel somethings could have been shortened

I did like the talk of all cultures and how they sort of new of each other and their influences.

History of the Ancient World

Good audio. Entertaining. A lot of information covering Asia to Europe from Gilgamesh to after Constantine.

Long and sometimes complicated

Such a good sweeping history of the many cities, states and empires across the ages. As with most histories, it is told by the rise and fall of rulers and empires. It does give some perspective to the constant flow of human civilization.