The history of the ancient world : from the earliest accounts to the fall of Rome
The first volume in a new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Historian Bauer provides both sweeping scope and attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. Dozens of maps provide a geography of great events, while timelines give the reader an ongoing sense of the passage of years and cultural interconnection. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath"--Literature, epic traditions, private letters and accounts--to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled. The result is a tapestry of human behavior from which we may draw conclusions about the direction of world events and the causes behind them.--From publisher description
1 online resource (xxvii, 868 pages) : illustrations, maps
9780393070897, 0393070891
934635180
The origin of kingship
The earliest story
The rise of aristocracy
The creation of empire
The age of iron
The philosopher king
The first written records
The first war chronicles
The first civil war
The first epic hero
The first victory over death
The first reformer
The first military dictator
The first planned cities
The first collapse of empire
The first barbarian invasions
The first monotheist
The first environmental disaster
The battle for reunification
The Mesopotamian mixing bowl
The overthrow of the Xia
Hammurabi's empire
The Hyksos seize Egypt
King Minos of Crete
The Harappan disintegration
The rise of the Hittites
Ahmose expels the Hyksos
Usurpation and revenge
The three-way contest
The shifting capitals of the Shang
The Mycenaeans of Greece
Struggle of the gods
Wars and marriages
The greatest battle in very ancient times
The battle for Troy
The first historical king of China
The Rig Veda
The wheel turns again
The end of the new kingdom
The dark age of Greece
The dark age of Mesopotamia
The fall of the Shang. The mandate of heaven
The Bharata war
The son of David
From western to eastern Zhou
The Assyrian renaissance
New peoples
Trading posts and colonies
Old enemies
Kings of Assyria and Babylon
Spectacular defeat
The decline of the king
The Assyrians in Egypt
Medes and Persians
Conquest and tyranny
The beginnings and end of empire
A brief empire
Cyrus the great
The republic of Rome
Kingdoms and reformers
The power of duty and the art of war
The spreading Persian empire
The Persian wars
The Peloponnesian wars
The first sack of Rome
The rise of the Ch'in
The Macedonian conquerors
Rome tightens its grasp
Alexander and the wars of the successors
The Mauryan epiphany
First emperor, second dynasty
The wars of the sons
Roman liberators and Seleucid conquerors
Between east and west
Breaking the system
The problems of prosperity
New men
Empire
Eclipse and restoration
The problem of succession
The edges of the Roman world
Children on the throne
The mistake of inherited power
Savior of the empire