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The Maya forged one of the greatest societies in the history of the ancient Americas and in all of human history. Long before contact with Europeans, Maya communities built spectacular cities with large, well-fed large populations. They mastered the visual arts, and developed a sophisticated writing system that recorded extraordinary knowledge in calendrics, mathematics, and astronomy. The Maya achieved all this without area-wide centralized control.

The ancient Egyptians are an enduring source of fascination - mummies and pyramids, curses, and rituals have captured the imagination of generations. We all have a mental picture of ancient Egypt, but is it the right one? How much do we really know about this great civilization? This second edition of Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction explores the history and culture of pharaonic Egypt, including ideas about Egyptian kingship, ancient Egyptian writing systems, and the history of Egyptology.

The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. It had a population of 60 million people spread across lands encircling the Mediterranean and stretching from northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates, and from the Rhine to the North African coast. It was, above all else, an empire of force - employing a mixture of violence, suppression, order, and tactical use of power to develop an astonishingly uniform culture.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (an English historian) is a six-volume collection that examines the fate of one of the most renowned civilizations in history, the Roman Empire. In this masterpiece, Gibbon covers the time periods from the second century A.D. to the 15th century, and takes a look at the history of early Christianity along with the Roman State church, the history of Europe and the Middle East along with the rise of Islam, and the events that lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire among many other historical events.

The fate of the Lost Ark of the Covenant is one of the great historical mysteries of all time. The Bible contains hundreds of references to the Ark's power, but the Ark itself mysteriously disappears from recorded history sometime after the building of the Temple of Solomon. After 10 years of searching through the dusty archives of Europe and the Middle East, Graham Hancock has succeeded where scores of others have failed. This intrepid journalist has tracked down the true story behind the myths and legends - revealing where the Ark is today, how it got there, and why it remains hidden.

La storia di Roma racconta la parabola del più grande impero occidentale con la scrittura affilata che ha negli anni appassionato - e appassiona tutt'ora - i lettori di Indro Montanelli. Abile, la penna dell'autore ripercorre i rivolgimenti culturali e politici della società romana dalle sue origini al crollo dell'impero, unendo alla sempre precisa cronaca degli eventi, ritratti vivaci delle figure che di Roma hanno incarnato la storia.

Here is a fascinating compact history of Chinese political, economic, and cultural life, ranging from the origins of civilization in China to the beginning of the 21st century. Historian Paul Ropp combines vivid story-telling with astute analysis to shed light on some of the larger questions of Chinese history. Offering a global perspective, the book tells how China's nomadic neighbors to the north and west influenced much of the political, military, and even cultural history of China.

What defines a civilization? How did the first states emerge? How were the world's ancient states similar and different? Answer these and other dramatic questions with this grand 48-lecture course that reveals how human beings around the world transitioned from small farming communities to the impressive cultural and political systems that would alter the course of history.

After 2,000 years, Christianity is the world's largest religion and continues to prosper and grow. What accounts for its continued popularity? In these 24 lectures, Professor Johnson maintains that the most familiar aspects of Christianity-its myths, institutions, ideas and morality-are only its outer "husk." He takes you on a journey to find the "kernel" of Christianity's appeal: religious experience. You'll travel back to Christianity's origins during its first 300 years to identify the elements that first made it appealing and which still hold the secret to its ability to attract new followers.

Since the Renaissance, Julius Caesar has been idolized as a superman. There is no doubt that Caesar was an extraordinary man. But as General Fuller points out, Caesar was more extraordinary for his reckless ambition, matchless daring, and ruthless tyranny than for his skills as a military commander. Caesar continually had to extricate himself from the results of mistaken judgments. His unpremeditated Gallic conquest was just one of Fuller's many examples.

What sort of men were the Roman emperors (and they were all men)? What background and training, if any, prepared them for their awesome responsibilities? What depravities did they display? And what achievements can they claim: laws passed, monuments built, lands and peoples conquered? Dive into these questions and more with this introduction to the complex personalities of emperors such as Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.

In this fascinating audio course on the Roman monarchy, republic, and empire, you will explore the essentials of Roman civilization: the creation of a city at the center of world history, its political legacy, its architectural and cultural achievements, its treatment of women and slaves, and its tragic flaws. You will begin by placing ancient Rome in world history by looking at its origins and contexts in terms of geography and chronology.

St. Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history.

Despite the turmoil of Arab nationalism and fundamentalism, Middle Eastern wars, and oil crises, the history of the Arab world has been little known and poorly understood in the West. One reason may be that, for more than half a century, there has been no up-to-date single volume work that chronicles the story of Arab civilization - until now.

In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelt, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In The Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland explores how this came about.

Centuries ago, Spanish conquistadors searching for gold and new lands encountered a group of independent city-states in Mesoamerica. Sophisticated beyond the Spaniards' wildest imaginings, these people were the Aztecs, the Maya, and related cultures that shared common traditions of religion, government, the arts, engineering, and trade. In many ways more advanced than European nations, these societies equaled the world's greatest civilizations of their time.

Bringing to life the world of the Old and New Testaments, the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Don’t Know Much About® series transforms dry, difficult reading into colorful and realistic accounts. Relying on new research and improved translations, Kenneth C. Davis uncovers some amazing questions and contradictions about what the Bible really says: Jericho’s walls may have tumbled down because the city lies on a fault line; Moses never parted the Red Sea; There was a Jesus, but he wasn’t born on Christmas and he probably wasn't an only child....

In part one, 'First Contact', we discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction, it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas.

Polybius wrote his Histories "to find out by what means and by what political system the entire world was brought under the domination of Rome." Within the short space of about 50 years Rome went from being a provincial leader of an Italian confederacy to become the Mistress of the Mediterranean. Polybius was one of the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination of tradition and a keen scrutiny of the facts.

The Civil War is Julius Caesar’s personal account of his war with Pompey the Great - the war that destroyed the five-hundred-year-old Roman Republic. Caesar the victor became Caesar the dictator. In three short books, Caesar describes how, in order to defend his honor and the freedom of both himself and the Roman people, he marched on Rome and defeated the forces of Pompey and the Senate in Italy, Spain, and Greece.