Great Ancient

A detailed, illustrated exploration of 20 of the world's greatest mysteries. Go back in time and history and explore the wonders that have captured man's imagination for centuries. Be dazzled by a manuscript still undeciphered, an oasis in the desert abandoned, a legendary island lost, and a forgotten city rediscovered. Learn about the first computer, listen to the myths and legends, and visit cryptic sanctuaries beyond imagination. Crisscross the globe for answers, consider possibilities, and marvel at the ingenuity of past cultures and civilizations. Are they mysteries, lessons, or warnings?

In this final volume of the series, John Strickland tells the story of Christendom’s most tumultuous century. As nihilism began to cast its menacing shadow on the eve of the First World War, a self-styled “antichrist” named Friedrich Nietzsche and an obstinately Christian Fyodor Dostoevsky both offered ominous visions of what the West would become if “God is dead” and any moral act thus becomes permissible. Though total warfare seemed to confirm such predictions, a project arose in its wake to rebuild utopia with secular ideologies that, in the case of Nazism, opened the abyss even further.

When Alexander the Great died at thirty-two, he left behind the largest empire the world had ever seen — and no plan for what came next. His generals — the Diadochi, the "Successors" — spent the next forty years tearing each other apart in wars more dramatic and consequential than Alexander's own conquests. An eighty-one-year-old one-eyed general charging into his last battle. A siege engineer who built towers taller than city walls. A pragmatist who stole Alexander's corpse and built a dynasty that lasted three centuries. A political operator who murdered an entire royal family to ...

The Mediterranean is one of the great wellsprings of human civilization. Central to the region’s history are the splendorous cities that flowered around the region—bases of power that saw innovation, commerce, expansion, and the building of great empires. Many of these cities have become icons of the ancient world, and exemplars of the cultures, conquests, and ways of life that have built western civilization.

Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.

Ancient wonder. A seductive rival. A discovery to die for. Darwin Lacroix drops everything—including his fiancée, Eyrún—to pursue a new lead on the lost Library of Alexandria. The trail begins in Rome, but it belongs to Tessa Santarossa—a brilliant Italian operator who plays by her own rules and never shows her full hand. What starts as a promising discovery turns into a dangerous race across a two-thousand-year-old path. Armed militants want the truth buried, and Tessa’s agenda is as elusive as the prize itself. Eyrún sees the threat immediately—and when the hunt turns violent...

It begins with a golden apple and ends with the founding of Rome. In between lies the greatest story the Western world ever told—and, for three thousand years, almost no one has been able to read it whole. Until now. Everyone knows the Iliad and the Odyssey. Far fewer know that Homer's two poems were only ever parts of something larger: an eight-poem epic cycle that told the entire arc of the Trojan War, from the wedding that caused it to the death of the last hero to survive it. Six of those poems were lost. Their stories endured only in fragments, ancient summaries, and the work of ...

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is one of antiquity’s most ambitious studies of leadership, power, education, and empire. Written in the fourth century BCE, the Cyropaedia—or The Education of Cyrus—presents Xenophon’s account of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire. It is not a conventional biography. Xenophon uses the life of Cyrus to ask a larger political question: what kind of person can persuade others not merely to obey, but to follow willingly? The story begins with Cyrus as a boy, educated in the disciplined customs of Persia but exposed to the wealth and ceremony of the ...

Trojan War - Punic Wars - Alexander the Great - Ancient Rome - Ancient Greece - Military History - Hannibal - Ancient Warfare Three wars. Three civilizations pushed to their absolute limit. And three outcomes that reshaped the ancient world so completely, we are still living with the consequences. The Great Wars of the Ancient World Explained puts you on the front lines of history's most consequential conflicts, where empires rose, fell, and were reborn in blood. In Troy: The War That Became Legend, separate Homer's epic from the archaeology beneath a Turkish hillside, and discover what the...

A bastard. A hostage. A soldier. An assassin. In the crucible of a fracturing empire and a forbidden faith, guided by one extraordinary woman, a boy becomes the man who will change the world.

They built roads a hundred miles long — and had nothing to drive on them. In a dry canyon in northwestern New Mexico — nine inches of rain a year, no river, almost no timber — people raised the largest buildings in North America. Pueblo Bonito stood four and five stories high with some 650 rooms, and nothing taller was built on the continent until the nineteenth century. Its builders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no metal tools. They hauled two hundred thousand roof beams from mountains fifty miles away, carried by hand, and laid masonry so precise it is still standing after a ...

Professor Timothy R. Pauketat illuminates the riveting discovery of the largest pre-Columbian city on U.S. soil. Once a flourishing metropolis of 20,000 people in 1050, Cahokia had rotted away by 1400. Its earthen mounds near modern-day St. Louis reveal “woodhenges” and evidence of large-scale human sacrifice.

If you have ever wondered exactly how we got from the Christian society of the early centuries, united in its faithfulness to apostolic tradition, to the fragmented and secular state of the West today, The Age of Division will answer all your questions and more. In this second of a four-volume cultural history of Christendom, author John Strickland applies insights from the Orthodox Church to trace the decline and disintegration of both East and West after the momentous but often neglected Great Schism.

Around 1200 BCE, the most advanced civilizations on Earth were destroyed in a single generation. The Hittite Empire — gone. Mycenaean Greece — gone. The great port of Ugarit — burned and never rebuilt. Trade networks that had connected the Mediterranean for centuries — collapsed. An entire world of palace kingdoms, international diplomacy, and bronze-age prosperity vanished in a cascade of fire, famine, and war. At the center of the destruction: a mysterious coalition of raiders the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Who were they? Where did they come from? And did they really bring ...

This story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full detail "the greatest art theft in history." Almost 200 years after they were "purchased" from Greece, the finest and most famous marbles of antiquity still remain a burning issue. This compelling, controversial story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full and colorful detail "the greatest art theft in history", a steamy tale of obsession, intrigue, adultery, and ruin.

Discover the secrets of our past and unlock a deeper understanding of human development. Immerse yourself in the legacies of ancient civilizations and uncover the interconnectedness and impact they still hold today. Gain a comprehensive overview of the most pivotal societies that have shaped human history. Experience the achievements, beliefs, and complexities of ancient cultures through captivating narratives. Delve into the advancements of ancient China, the diverse culture of the Persian Empire, and the enduring legacies of the Maurya and Byzantine Empires. Learn about the foundational ...

A GROUNDBREAKING QUEER CLASSIC AND POWERFUL REIMAGINING OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT THROUGH THE EYES OF HIS LOVER, FOR FANS OF SONG OF ACHILLES AND THE ODYSSEY 'One of the greatest historical novels ever written' SARAH WATERS 'I love to find queer representation in historical fiction . . . Renault's...

They built cities with indoor plumbing before Rome existed. They carved monuments from living rock. They engineered hydraulic systems that fed a million people. They developed writing systems we still cannot read. And then they vanished -- so completely that the modern world forgot they ever existed. History remembers the winners. The Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians. But for every civilization that left a legacy we recognize, there are others that achieved extraordinary things and then disappeared -- swallowed by deserts, jungles, successor states, or simply time itself. This book tells ...

A stunning portrait of the magnificent splendor of ancient Persia and its enduring legacies for today's Iran. “A brilliant feat of resurrection.” -Tom Holland, author of Dominion The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of...

The fall of the Roman Empire and the birth of the medieval world — told by the men who saw it happen. Six of the greatest ancient historians, from the height of the Empire to the barbarian kingdoms that rose on its ruins, in one volume, newly rendered in clear modern English. For seven centuries Rome faced the peoples it called barbarian — first as a distant curiosity, then as a mortal threat, and at last as the heirs who inherited its world. This is that story told from BOTH sides of the frontier: the Roman gaze upon the barbarian, and the barbarian's own account of himself once Rome ...