Ancient Empires before Alexander

By: Robert L. Dise Jr., The Great Courses

Narrated by: Robert L. Dise Jr.

Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Complete your knowledge of the ancient world with this comprehensive look at the dozen empires that flourished in the 2,000 years before the conquests of Alexander the Great. Over the course of 36 insightful lectures, you'll follow the Egyptians, the Mycenaean Greeks, the Persians, the Carthaginians, and others as they rise to glory, create administrative and military structures, clash with one another, and eventually collapse.

Professor Dise immerses you in the political, administrative, and military details of these thrilling civilizations, analyzing three basic questions: How did this particular empire emerge? How was it governed and defended? How and why did it ultimately fall? These questions raise a host of profound issues on the growth, development, and failures of vast imperial systems.

Grounded in a chronological approach, you'll find no better guide through the palatial halls, administrative offices, and war-torn battlefields of these empires than Professor Dise. Each lecture is packed with a range of rich sources on which our current understanding of the ancient Near East rests, including cuneiform tablets, colorful narratives, and archaeological remains.

As you comb through these intriguing records, you quickly become more informed about how the past is recorded and passed down to subsequent generations. Spanning thousands of years of human history and encompassing regions both familiar and forgotten, this course is a remarkable tour through the farthest reaches of the ancient world - in all its marvelous diversity.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2009 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2009 The Great Courses

Great narrative of the ancient world

Easiest-to-follow ancient history book/course that I've heard. highly recommend to get your bearings on the topic.

An interesting recitation of the early civilizations of the Mediterranean and Persia from Sumer to Carthage.

Not that I haven’t heard and read much of this before, but who can keep it straight? We all know Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar and Sennacherib, maybe, but who were Shamshi-Adad, Ashurbanipal and Suppilumiuma?

He presents one hypothesis the I found astonishing: the Sea Peoples were Mycenaeans. The story goes that the Heroes of Troy returned to their scattered city states and turned on each other in a civil war, the destruction of Sandy Pylos and Mycenae itself was perpetrated not by the mysterious Sea Peoples as I had thought, but by themselves, but the result was the same: the collapse of the economy and social structures. The remaining warriors and their destitute families took to the sea. The tablets of Ugarit speak of only seven ships, not a huge armada of an empire on the march. Then there’s the archeological evidence of the Philistines: their remains very closely resemble Mycenaean. And who are the Philistines? They were the remnant of the Sea People invaders of Egypt defeated and exiled by Ramses III, just a few steps ahead of Moses who dallied for 40 years in The Sinai. So … young David fought a grandson of Homer’s heroes? Certainly the story of Odysseus is a story of a pirate, why not also the sons of Menalaeus and Agamemnon?

Very Dry

Most of these courses I am barreling through in a couple of days. this one took me over a week because of the lackluster way the material is presented. Even so, it is a good course and covers a lot of material.

A fantastic sampler of Ancient Empires.

Absolutely loved this dive into various empires pre-Alexander. I put this on with out much enthusiasm as I typically listen to discussions on very specific periods and people's. I was a fool. I was absolutely enthralled by this presentation. Please add more! Love this professor.

Solid Instruction on Ancient Med. Empires

Any additional comments?

This course is great to guide you through the ebb and flow of ancient in Empires of the Mediterranean region. It doesn't end when Alexander dies but continues to speak on the Roman Empire as well. The Professor may incorrectly pronounce a few words here and there, but perhaps his education has taught him differently, and I am the one who is incorrect. I enjoyed this course and found it to be a great stepping stone as I continue learning about history, and now target each individual history of the Empires spoken of in this course.

Captivating and Haunting

All of these lectures were great. However the two lectures on Mycenaean civilization are two of the greatest lectures I've ever listened to. They are captivating and truly haunting, especially at the very end where he reads the contemporaneous account of the very last days and of the human sacrifices offered to Hera and Zeus as a final plea for salvation.

Wonderful

Very interesting, informative and interesting. I enjoyed it very much and will listen to it again!

Amazing Empires that paved the way for Alexander

"Ancient Empires Before Alexander" is quite a good overview of the various cultures of the Near and Midlle East, the Mediterranean, of Egypt and North Africa that preceded the arrival of Alexander and the expansion of Greek culture and influence into those areas. The author, Robert Dise, goes into just enough detail of the various empires to give the listener a good sense of what the culture (or cultures, depending on the particular empire and the expansiveness of it's area of control) was like without getting bogged down in the minutiae of the varied aspects of each. The narrator was the author himself and was one of the easiest readers to listen to that I've heard in the many Audible books that I've listened to. Overall I found this book to be a real gem and recommend it to anyone with even the slightest interest in ancient history.

Comparing ancient Greeks to “Rednecks.”

Wow, great lecture until the fall of the Mycenaeans. I think the professor could have found a way to convey his message without insulting rural Americans. That was disappointing. Nonetheless, a well executed series of lectures and well worth the time.

Good series, title a little misleading

This is a great survey of Lesser discussed Kingdoms of western civilization. Not all are before Alexander but none outside of the general story of western civilization.