FREE UK Delivery on book orders dispatched by Amazon over £ Ancient Worlds: The Search for the Origins of Western Civilization Paperback – 1 Sep Accompanying the major BBC TV series, Richard Miles's Ancient Worlds tells the epic story of civilization, and the cities.
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- Ancient Worlds, The Search for the Origins of Western Civilization by Richard Miles
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- Ancient Worlds
Sir Kenneth Clarke guides us through the ages exploring the glorious rise of civilisation in western man. Beginning with the bleakness of the dark ages to the present day, we consider The Story of the US Mankind embraces a groundbreaking way of telling this epic human story. Drawing on a growing global interest in a revelatory field of An Ancient society is examined, but not just from a historical point of view.
The researchers try to present and approach it as if they lived in that Classical or earlier culture, religion etcetera. Incredibly poor I'm afraid. In the effort to popularize these big topics the programmes are as misleading as fiction. Describing Ptolemy as Alexander's "boyhood friend and food taster" and "Mr Fix-it" is incredibly glib and merely pulls out a couple of facts to present a character portrait. Alexander's burning of Persepolis is "an act of contempt" - one interpretation, other theories as to what happened and why are not even mentioned.
Likewise treatment of years of Roman history and the rise of Christianity means that matters are taken out of order, events described in misleading simplicity.
Ancient Worlds, The Search for the Origins of Western Civilization by Richard Miles
There are sometimes interesting snippets, but the programs took on far too much and makes sweeping generalizations based on modern perceptions. Explore popular and recently added TV series available to stream now with Prime Video. Start your free trial. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! Watch This Week's Trailer Trailer.
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To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Ancient Worlds , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Feb 27, Matthew Griffiths rated it liked it. A frantic gallop through early history, painted on a vast canvas - bringing together complex historic themes and threads and presenting these in a way that I found enjoyable and utterly compelling. I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in ancient history.
Ancient Worlds
The story beats are the same — bevel-rimmed bowls, Assyrian love of war, Athenian democratic imposed empire, etc. Such a wide scope obviously means it glosses over a lot, and Miles pretty much just hits up a few key talking points. The book is designed for the general public, as evidenced by the smooth, accessible writing style, and its whistle-stop tour is intended simply to hook the reader into hopefully sparking a passion.
I would recommend this to new hobbyists or school students about to embark on further study. Quite a canvas for pages so unsurprisingly a bit uneven. The coverage of early Mesopotamian civilisations is quite descriptive and a little patchy. Nevertheless, it sets out the question of why civilisations began to spontaneously form and what their common properties might be. The Bronze age civilisations are covered more fully and compellingly, with interesting discussions on Egypt and the collapses caused by the "Sea People" and rigidity of theocracies.
However, the discussion of Egypt mirro Quite a canvas for pages so unsurprisingly a bit uneven. However, the discussion of Egypt mirrors the approach taken with Greece and especially with Rome. This is definitely not a chronological perspective, so the focus is strongly on the power structures of the Athenian democracy and Alexander's imperial striding in the east. The last third of the book implicitly ties together these ideas of civilisation by considering the relative stabilities of Roman power in the various phases of its dominance.
Overall this is a very interesting book and thought-provoking book, at least for a reader with a curiosity and some passing knowledge of the classical civilisations. It is certainly neither a bluffers introduction nor a text in academic depth.
I have not yet been able to see the documentary series it accompanied, but it seems to be more "the book of the film" than the story of ideas which was subsequently filmed. In as little as pages Richard Miles succeeds in bringing ancient civilizations to life. Amazing job of Miles and I look forward to read his, also fabulous I guess, account of Rome's worst enemy: Great global overview of the Ancient civilizations.
Though unavoidably he has to skip a lot of details and nuances, the book is very informative yet reads very pleasantly. Great as a starting point to learn about the ancients! An unbelievably good high level overview of history from the beginnings of civilisation to the end of the Roman empire - with insights into political developments and the paradox of civilisation which are still applicable today.
Aug 19, James Woo rated it liked it. An enjoyable and very readable introduction to the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. I have read individual books in the past about all these civilisations, and came to this wanting more information about Mesopotamia. This book presents a persuasive argument about how civilisations have built on previous attempts and how this process works. So as well as coming away with a greater knowledge of Mesopotamia, I also now far better understand why each of these civilisations An enjoyable and very readable introduction to the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
So as well as coming away with a greater knowledge of Mesopotamia, I also now far better understand why each of these civilisations came into existence and why they failed. By necessity in a book of this nature, much has to be omitted, but you are free to go and read about what interests you in greater detail.
What it does is try to give you an overarching framework into which to fit the various "ancient worlds" and it does a very good job at this. Dec 03, Steve. Many of the cities of Syria and the Levant were reduced to rubble. Smaller settlements in more remote locations simply disappeared.
The causes of the great Bronze Age collapse and the story of the new worlds that grew up in its w page The causes of the great Bronze Age collapse and the story of the new worlds that grew up in its wake will be the subject of this chapter. It is a sobering reminder of the fragility of civilisation, but also of its tenacity. For in the new age of iron that followed this ancient Dark Age, civilisation would re-emerge, tempered in the flames of conflict, tougher and more resilient than ever before.
It felt like lighter than usual historical reading by a well-researched and knowledgeable author. Full of information and overall, an interesting perspective. Excellent for beginners, or those that are looking for something readable, as opposed to a historical blow by blow.