Showing titles in Civilization

The mourners fall silent with anticipation as Pericles walks briskly from the sepulchre to the erected stage. After a slight pause, he takes a deep breath and begins an eloquent funeral oration. He speaks on the glory of Athens and the honor of her dead. It is the Athenian winter of 431 B.C. and the city-state is engaged in a bitter war with its rival Sparta. Pericles’ resounding voice echoes off the surrounding hills and into the ears of Thucydides, the historian who records them in his work, The History of the Peloponnesian War. About eight hundred years later, a Christian bishop in ...

One day while sitting around the dinner table with his family, Victor Briggs’s Uncle Tim told him that on a visit to Hawaii, he had met an Indigenous Hawaiian Elder who told him a story. A long time ago, Indigenous Australian seafarers had sailed to Hawaii on the trade winds. When they got there, they had helped the Hawaiians with skills, information and technology. Hawaiian people were so impressed with Aboriginal people that they let them stay on their islands when they were travelling throughout the Pacific Regions.

Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely separates from another.

According to historical sources, visual symbols are utilized to highlight individual ideas, concepts, groups or persons. In some cases, understanding what a symbol stands for is quite easy. But that’s not always the case. In fact, there are symbols that are complex and their interpretation may prove very challenging. And yet, their importance can be determined by realizing how they have contributed to understanding historical images. People from all over the world utilize symbols for expressing abstract notions or thoughts. They also use them to point out to specific ideologies, or ...

We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes listeners on a fascinating and wide ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history.

Finding from my own personal experience how troublesome it is to hunt through piles of dusty old volumes, I have decided to make a small selection of these papers which I consider are not only rare and very interesting, but which also give an insight into the varied activities and achievements of Burton’s crowded life. It will, I think, be realized that such a volume as this will not be superfluous, for, apart from saving people an enormous amount of trouble, it will give them further insight into the life-work of one of the greatest men of the Victorian era.

The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. And, as Kenneth Harl illustrates in this glorious work of narrative history, their deeds still resonate today. Professor Kenneth Harl draws on a lifetime of scholarship to vividly recreate the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age.

Ancient Egypt wasn't all pyramids, sphinxes and gold sarcophagi. For your average Egyptian, life was tough, and work was hard, conducted under the burning gaze of the sun god Ra. During the course of a day in the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor), Egypt's religious capital, we meet 24 Egyptians from all strata of society - from the king to the bread-maker, the priestess to the fisherman, the soldier to the midwife - and get to know what the real Egypt was like by spending an hour in their company.

The Power of Art is an epic work of non-fiction that will transform our understanding of the world by unlocking the human stories behind millennia of art. Taking listeners from ancient Babylon to contemporary Pyongyang, the eminent curator Caroline Campbell explains art's power to illuminate our lives, and inspires us to benefit from its transformative and regenerative power.

When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament.

Christopher Hadley takes us on a lyrical journey into this past, retracing and searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. His passage is not always easy. Time and nature have erased many clues; bridges rotted and whole woods grew across the route. Carters found an easier ford downstream, and people broke up its milestones to mend new paths. Year after year the heavy clay swallowed whole lengths of it; the once mighty road became a bridleway, an overgrown hollow-way, a parched mark in the soil.

Cómo las emociones y los instintos determinan el funcionamiento y el devenir de la humanidad. ¿Sabía que el trueque apareció para evitar las sangrientas venganzas de los saqueos entre tribus y que las primeras monedas surgieron por falta de memoria? ¿Sabía que la propiedad privada la inventaron los monarcas corruptos para recaudar más o que las sociedades anónimas se crearon para ocultar la identidad de los nobles agraciados por los reyes? ¿Qué conducta hizo que el pan no cambiara de precio en tres siglos?

Desde que la mente humana desarrolló la capacidad de pensamiento, las personas han considerado no solo el significado de la vida, sino la génesis del mundo, el universo y todas las maravillas naturales y formas de vida preciosas dentro de él. Hasta el día de hoy, todos estos temas intrincados continúan siendo asuntos muy discutidos, a menudo mejor encapsulados en el debate entre el creacionismo y la evolución.

It is believed that the Circassians—the English translation of the Turkish term Cherkess—emerged as a discrete society or entity around the 10th century CE, although there are references to them before this. In fact, the Circassians are believed to be the oldest indigenous people of the North Caucasus and self-identified as Adyghe. Historians believe the first settlers appeared some 300,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the history and culture of Circassia and the Circassians is largely unknown in the English-speaking and wider world outside Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The Tower of Babel: Legend or History? reveals our shared ancestry as never before! Have you ever wondered if the Tower of Babel story was about a real thing? Certainly, many scientists and historians try not to confirmed its existence, but according to many, people were simply too dumb to have created such a thing 6000 or 7000 years ago.

India has been the location of many different empires throughout its long history. The Indus Valley Civilization was home to one of the world’s first civilizations more than 5,000 years ago, which was followed by the Aryan-Vedic culture and then a host of other kingdoms that flourished across the subcontinent. India has also been the birthplace of many religions. The Vedic religion of the Aryans evolved into the Hindu religion, and Buddhism and Jainism were also born in India. By the Middle Ages, India was home to many different religions and ethnic groups.

Après "Les Routes de la Soie", un regard aiguisé sur les profonds bouleversements du monde d'aujourd'hui. Les nouveaux défis posés à l'Occident deviennent toujours plus complexes. L'Europe a plus de mal que jamais à penser son avenir face aux crises, tandis que les États-Unis sont lancés dans un retrait inédit des affaires internationales, menaçant d'anciennes alliances. Pendant ce temps, sur les antiques Routes de la Soie souffle un vent d'espoir.

Una síntesis magistral de la totalidad de la vida romana, desde su fundación hasta su ocaso a manos de los bárbaros. En esta obra, Miguel Ángel Novillo López, emprende la necesaria labor de resumir los quince siglos de la existencia de la cultura romana con fin de crear una obra altamente didáctica, amena y rigurosa. Una ventana limpia a la civilización que sentó las bases de nuestro modo de vida actual. El autor traza un amplio recorrido cronológico para explicar las bases para la fundación de Roma y el posterior devenir de este pueblo desde la monarquía a la república.

The change in our ancestors' behaviour was barely perceptible at first. Only a few clues in the archaeological record - sea shells, ochre and stone tools exchanged over long distances - hint at what was to come. Today, a network of interdependence and trade spans the planet - lifting most of our species out of the grinding poverty of the past. But for much of history this engine of human progress stalled, with societies rigged in the interests of small parasitic elites.

Ancient Iran: Cosmology, Mythology, History presents Iran's pre-Islamic history within the context of both its complex cosmology and rich mythology. The audiobook uses the concept of farr to show how authority, finding guidance in the cosmic realm, organized the lives of Iran's hero-saints in the mythic realm. It also discusses how historical monarchs organized their hierarchical societies according to the dictates of Ahura Mazda.