The Story of Civilization reflects a new emphasis in presenting the history of the world as a thrilling and compelling narrative. Within each chapter, children will encounter short stories that place them directly in the shoes of historical figures, both famous and ordinary, as they live through legendary battles and invasions, philosophical debates, the construction of architectural wonders, the discovery of new inventions and sciences, and the exploration of the world.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

First Civilizations is the second edition of a popular student text first published in 1996 in Montreal by Les Editions Champ Fleury. This much updated and expanded edition provides an introductory overview of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. It was conceived primarily for students who have little or no knowledge of ancient history or archaeology. The book begins with the role of history and archaeology in understanding the past, and continues with the origins of agriculture and the formation of the Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia. Three subsequent chapters concentrate on Assyrian and Babylonian history and culture. The second half of the book focuses on Egypt, begining with the physical environment of the Nile, the formation of the Egyptian state and the Old Kingdom. Subsequent chapters discuss the Middle Kingdom, the Hyksos period, and the 18th Dynasty, with space devoted to Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, the Ramesside period. The text ends with the Persian conquest of Mesopotamia and Egypt. First Civilizations also contains sections on astronomy, medicine, architecture, eschatology, religion, burial practices and mummification, and discusses the myths of Gilgamesh, Isis and Osiris. Each chapter has a basic bibliography which emphasizes English language encyclopedias, books and journals specializing in the ancient Near East.

Celebrated for numerous developments in the areas of law, writing, religion, and mathematics, Mesopotamia has been immortalized as the cradle of civilization. Its fabled cities, including Babylon and Nineveh, spawned new cultures, traditions, and innovations in art and architecture, some of which can still be seen in present-day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Readers will be captivated by this ancient culture’s rich history and breadth of accomplishment, as they marvel at images of the magnificent temples and artifacts left behind.

Describes the world of the Romans from the founding of the city to the decline of the empire.

For centuries, the epics, legends and myths of Mesopotamia's ancient civilization lay buried under the desert sands, along with great cities like Babylon, Nineveh, Ur, and Ashur, waiting for the day when archaeologists would reveal them to the modern world. These myths represent some of the earliest literature ever found. Peopled with characters like the goddess Ishtar and the warrior-king Gilgamesh, they are filled with universal themes that resonate even today.