Books » Ancient History Books

This comprehensive, illustrated guide to Britain's earthworks, henges, and standing stones explores how and why they were built and used,

Confucius (551-479 BCE) was a famous Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced East Asian life and thought. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism or Daoism during the Han DynastyConfucius's thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism. It was introduced to Europe by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Latinize the name as "Confucius." The teachings of Confucius are known primarily through the Analects of Confucius, a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments," which was compiled many years after his death. Setting Confucius' ideas against the context of his own life and times, Jonathan Price brings to life the thoughts of the Master in their pristine form. Price traces the influence of Confucius both in China and globally right up until our own day, and examines whether the world needs to listen to him once again.

The riveting story of the Germania and its incarnations and exploitations through the ages.The pope wanted it, Montesquieu used it, and the Nazis pilfered an Italian noble's villa to get it: the Germania, by the Roman historian Tacitus, took on a life of its own as both an object and an ideology. When Tacitus wrote a not-very-flattering little book about the ancient Germans in 98 CE, at the height of the Roman Empire, he could not have foreseen that the Nazis would extol it as "a bible," nor that Heinrich Himmler, the engineer of the Holocaust, would vow to resurrect Germany on its grounds. But the Germania inspiredand polarizedreaders long before the rise of the Third Reich. In this elegant and captivating history, Christopher B. Krebs, a professor of classics at Harvard University, traces the wide-ranging influence of the Germania over a five-hundred-year span, showing us how an ancient text rose to take its place among the most dangerous books in the world. 14 black-and-white illustrations

Pages: 336, Paperback, Image

Whether political, cultural, or social, there are endless parallels between the ancient and modern worlds. Whether it's the murder of Caesar or the political assassination of Thatcher; the narrative arc of the hit "HBO Series", "The Wire", or that of Oedipus; the popular enthusiasm for the Emperor Titus or President Obama - over and over again we can be seen to be living very much like people did 2,000 or more years ago. It's time for us to re-examine the past. Our lives are infinitely richer if we take the time to look at what the Greeks and Romans have given us in politics and law, religion and philosophy and education, and to learn how people really lived in Athens, Rome, Sparta and Alexandria. This is a book with a serious point to make but the author isn't just a classicist but a comedian and broadcaster who has made television and radio documentaries about humour, education and Dorothy Parker. This is a book for us all, not for an elite.

On best-seller lists nationwide: New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and the Washington Post. This compelling and exhaustively researched account reveals the truth behind one of the greatest Judeo Christian archaeology of the centurya 1,600-year-old papyrus manuscript, or codex, containing the only known surviving Gospel of Judas. With all the skills of an investigative journalist and master storyteller, Herbert Krosney traces the forgotten gospel's improbable journey from the sands of the Egyptian desert across three continentsa trek that would take it through the netherworld of the international antiquities tradeuntil the crumbling papyrus is finally made to give up its secrets. Sold twice, lost once and hidden in a safe-deposit box in Long Island for sixteen years, the story of The Gospel of Judas's amazing trek from the cavern near the banks of the Nile River reads like a "plot from a Hollywood mystery." Was one of history's greatest villains really one of its greatest heroes Was Judas Iscariot really Jesus Christ's betrayer With the discovery of the 1,600-year-old Gospel, you can now decide for yourself.

The use of writing in the development of Greek law was unique. In this comparative 2008 study Professor Gagarin shows the reader how Greek law developed and explains why it became so different from the legal systems with which most legal historians are familiar. While other early communities wrote codes of law for academic or propaganda purposes, the Greeks used writing extensively to make their laws available to a relatively large segment of the community. On the other hand, the Greeks made little use of writing in litigation whereas other cultures used it extensively in this area, often putting written documents at the heart of the judicial process. Greek law thereby avoided becoming excessively technical and never saw the development of a specialised legal profession. This book will be of interest to those with an interest in the history of law, as well as ancient historians.

The Bronze Age was a formative period in European history when the organization of landscapes, settlements, and economy reached a new level of complexity. This book presents the first in-depth, comparative study of household, economy, and settlement in three micro-regions: the Mediterranean (Sicily), Central Europe (Hungary), and Northern Europe (South Scandinavia). The results are based on ten years of fieldwork in a similar method of documentation, and scientific analyses were used in each of the regional studies, making controlled comparisons possible. The new evidence demonstrates how differences in settlement organization and household economies were counterbalanced by similarities in the organized use of the landscape in an economy dominated by the herding of large flocks of sheep and cattle. The eight chapters in this book provide a new, contextualized understanding of the social and economic complexity of the Bronze Age. Its innovative theoretical and methodological approaches will be of relevance to all researchers of landscape and settlement history.

This volume explores the proposition that the absorption of the Greek world into the Roman empire created a new emphasis upon local identities, much as globalisation in the modern world has done. Localism became the focal point for complex debates: in some cases, it was complementary with imperial objectives, but in others tension can be discerned. The volume as a whole seeks to add texture and nuance to the existing literature on Greek identity, which has tended in recent years to emphasise the umbrella category of the Greek, to the detriment of specific polis and regional identities. It also contributes to the growing literature on the Romanisation of provinces, by emphasising the dialogue between a region's self-identification as a distinct space and its self-awareness as a component of the centrally-governed empire.

Volume 1 in the new Cambridge World History of Slavery surveys the history of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although chapters are devoted to the ancient Near East and the Jews, its principal concern is with the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. These are often considered as the first examples in world history of genuine slave societies because of the widespread prevalence of chattel slavery, which is argued to have been a cultural manifestation of the ubiquitous violence in societies typified by incessant warfare. There was never any sustained opposition to slavery, and the new religion of Christianity probably reinforced rather than challenged its existence. In twenty-two chapters, leading scholars explore the centrality of slavery in ancient Mediterranean life using a wide range of textual and material evidence. Non-specialist readers in particular will find the volume an accessible account of the early history of this crucial phenomenon.