History

The ultimate reference book

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome offers a comprehensive overview of the major cultures of the classical Mediterranean world—Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman—from the Bronze Age to the fifth century CE.

In Rosalie David's hands, the Egyptian builders of the pyramids are revealed as simple people, leading ordinary lives while they are engaged on building the great tomb for a Pharoah. This is an engrossing detective story, bringing to the general reader a fascinating picture of a special community that lived in Egypt and built one of the pyramids, some four thousand years ago.

The four-volume ""Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World"" offers comprehensive coverage of the ancient world, from prehistory to the fall of Rome, including Western and non-Western cultures and civilizations. An introduction outlines the key milestones in the development of human society, from the peoples of the Ice Age whose way of life was so vastly different from ours to the citizens of Greece and Rome whom we easily recognize from history books.

This book contains many short articles on a variety of topics pertaining to Ancient Greece. Each article has a suggested readings list.

Professor Reinhold, a distinguished senior classicist, has produced a fascinating and accessible collection of essays devoted to the study of ancient history. Among the articles included are "The Generation Gap," a major survey exploring myths of the uprising of one generation against another; "Augustus' Conception of Himself," a detailed summary and interpretation of Augustus' life and career; and "The Declaration of War against Cleopatra," an investigation of the charge against Cleopatra that she betrayed her pledge to Rome as a client ruler. Taken together, these essays form a unified and coherent survey of ancient history that will appeal to a broad audience.

The Roman Republic was one of the most civilized societies in the ancient world, ruled by elected officials whose power was checked by a constitution so well crafted that it inspired the founding fathers of the United States of America. Here Philip Matyszak describes fifty-seven of the foremost Romans of the Republic, spanning the centuries from its birth to its bloody death and including the best and the worst of the Roman elite: Licinius Crassus, a kind father and loving husband who crucified slaves by the thousands, or Cato the Censor, upright and incorruptible, xenophobic and misogynistic.

Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548-1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE-220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers--the Nile and the Yellow River--and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers--the "heretic king" Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Through a combination of textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each civilization as well as distinctive features.

In this rich and surprising book, Frances F. Berdan shines fresh light on the enigmatic ancient Aztecs. She casts her net wide, covering topics as diverse as ethnicity, empire-building, palace life, etiquette, origin myths, and human sacrifice. While the Aztecs are often described as "stone age," their achievements were remarkable. They constructed lofty temples and produced fine arts in precious stones, gold, and shimmering feathers. They crafted beautiful poetry and studied the sciences. They had schools and libraries, entrepreneurs and money, and a bewildering array of deities and dramatic ceremonies.