Ancient History Lives

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.

In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his bleak and barbarous new surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilization ceased to exist. Our own fascination with the Greek and Roman world has for centuries followed this perspective, shrouding cultures at the far reaches of their influence in myth. But what was it like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?

Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism—gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium-long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium—what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.

A New York Times bestselling historian of early Christianity takes on two of the most gripping questions of human existence: where did the ideas of heaven and hell come from and why do they endure? What happens when we die? A recent Pew Research poll showed that 72% of Americans believe in a...

As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians.

Spend a year in the company of the ancient Egyptians, during the twenty-sixth and final year of the reign of Amenhotep II (c.1400 BC), which saw a royal transition bringing Thutmose IV to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. Following the Egyptian calendar year, which was divided into three seasons (inundation, sowing and harvest), we will meet a farmer and his family, an embalmer, an artisan, a royal physician, a priest and even a royal wife as they live their lives in Thebes and Memphis during the eighteenth dynasty of the New Kingdom in this year in ancient Egyptian history.

Spend twenty-four hours with the ancient Chinese. Travel back to AD 17, during the fourth year of the reign of Wang Mang of the Han dynasty, a vibrant and innovative era full of conflicts and contradictions. 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.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A lucid, intelligent page-turner” (Los Angeles Times) that challenges long-held assumptions about Jesus Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God...

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

Between the infamous Lindisfarne raid in 793 CE and the Norman conquest of 1066, the peoples we know now as the Vikings became one of the most far-ranging and influential civilizations in history. The Vikings are frequently portrayed as raiders, marauding across medieval Europe and Britain, but the culture and society of the medieval Nordic peoples was so much more diverse, multifaceted and influential than it is often depicted.

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.

Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Julius Caesar's life, Adrian Goldsworthy covers not only the great Roman emperor's accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar's character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some 2,000 years later.

Here Durant tells the whole story of Greece from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, of tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, get minor emphasis in what is preeminently a vivid recreation of Greek culture, brought to the listener through the medium of supple, vigorous prose.

A vibrant portrait of a lost world, A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives reveals the mightiest civilization of antiquity through the eyes of one hundred of its citizens. The book gives a voice not just to Rome's most famous generals and rulers, such as Caesar and Caligula, but also to its builders, sculptors, poets, historians, gladiators, shepherds, enslaved people, and courtesans.

From morning till evening, the average Greek's life is described as he awakens, goes about his work, spends his leisure time, educates himself, exercises, and observes religious rites. The hardships of slaves, the narrow confines of female activities, and the constant drill of military routine are also minutely examined. If you have ever wanted to know what it was like to be an Athenian during the time of Pericles, listen to this riveting account of life in ancient Greece by one of the modern era's greatest historians.

A long time ago, in a suburban high school not so far away, a closeted nerd (me) and a closeted soccer star (Hutch) fell in love and planned to make their public debut at prom. Until Hutch bailed at the last minute, leaving me with a broken heart and unworn tuxedo. Tale as old as time, right? I spent the past ten years working to forget Hutch, returning to our old high school to teach and make new memories that could erase ones of him. I thought Hutch was ancient history, off living his professional athlete life.

Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90 percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction, but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism.

In ancient Rome, death was entertainment. In their struggle, we see ourselves. Step into the roaring heart of the Colosseum—where sand drank blood, emperors ruled by spectacle, and men fought not only for survival but for eternal glory. Gladiators of Rome reveals the astonishing truth behind one of history’s most misunderstood institutions: the Roman arena. Far from mindless brutality, the games were a mirror of an empire—its politics, religion, engineering, and obsession with power. Drawing on ancient texts, archaeology, and modern scholarship, Simpson Varro reconstructs the world of...

Unlock the Secrets of the Island Nation That Shaped the Modern World From the shadowy origins of its first inhabitants to its transformation into a dazzling technological superpower, Japan’s history is a saga of warriors, emperors, artistic genius, and global power plays that changed the world forever. This book is your engaging, fast-paced journey through the legendary moments that built the spirit of Japan. Dive deep into the compelling questions that define Japan’s unique identity: Who were the mysterious Jōmon people, and what do their 10,000-year-old artifacts reveal? Was the ...