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 The Vikings
The Vikings
The Vikings (World History)
Author: Don Nardo
2011
Lucent Books
Format: PDF
Size: 12 Mb
Pages: 112
ISBN: 1420503162
Language: English
For the people of Europe in the early medieval era, the story of the Vikings was one of unexpected and naked violence, of the triumph of the strong and ruthless, and of
the suffering of the weak and innocent. The prelude to this epic tale of woe was rooted in late ancient times. In the final century of the Roman Empire, spanning the 400s A.D., tribal peoples from across northern Europe began migrating. Searching for new lands, economic opportunities, and often simply booty, they steadily invaded, overran, and absorbed the empire’s outlying provinces. As a result, in the year 476 that realm officially ceased to exist.

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 Harbottle's Dictionary of Battles
Harbottle's Dictionary of Battles
Author: Thomas Benfield Harbottle
Harbottle's Dictionary of Battles
Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
1981
Format: PDF
Pages: 308
Language: English
Size: 46 MB

Harbottle 's Dictionary offers the key facts to all the major battles fought in the world. Each entry gives the date of the battle and the war during which it was fought, identifies the opposing sides, and describes the outcome. In addition, Mr. Bruce has carefully crossreferenced the Dictionary to indicate, where appropriate, other battles associated with each entry.

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 Unwrapping the Pharaohs: How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline
Unwrapping the Pharaohs: How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline
Author: John Ashton and David Down
Unwrapping the Pharaohs: How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline
Master Books
2006
Format: PDF
Size: 40 Mb
Language: English

Adults and children alike have been fascinated with the Egyptian civilization for decades, but most modern archaeologists have lately tried to use Egyptian chronology to dispute the biblical record of Joseph, Moses, and the Exodus. Students from high school to the college level are faced with a challenge to their faith as teachers cite the traditional chronology as fact to discredit the biblical account of Exodus. Those who wish to defend their faith in the accuracy of the Bible now have hope in this exciting new book that provides an accurate and compelling new chronology that confirms the biblical account.

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 Rome - Echoes of Imperial Glory
Rome - Echoes of Imperial Glory
Author: Collective
Rome - Echoes of Imperial Glory (Lost Civilizations Series)
Time-Life Books
1994
Format: PDF
Pages: 176
Language: English
Size: 32.7 MB

Long before the age of Julius Caesar and the days of empire, the Forum was the place wher eRomans came to witness and take part in the great moments of their communal history. The Forum's beginnings seem as misty as those of Rome itself. Readers assume the role of archaeologists, uncovering secrets of ancient civilizations. Stunning photographs and illustrations, plus detailed cutaways, maps and diagrams.

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 Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail
Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail
Author: William Ophuls
Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
2012
Format: pdf/epub
Size: 1.2 Mb
Language: English

"Immoderate Greatness" explains how a civilization’s very magnitude conspires against it to cause downfall. Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction. They travel an arc from initial success to terminal decay and ultimate collapse due to intrinsic, inescapable biophysical limits combined with an inexorable trend toward moral decay and practical failure. Because our own civilization is global, its collapse will also be global, as well as uniquely devastating owing to the immensity of its population, complexity, and consumption. To avoid the common fate of all past civilizations will require a radical change in our ethos—to wit, the deliberate renunciation of greatness—lest we precipitate a dark age in which the arts and adornments of civilization are partially or completely lost.

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 The Roman Triumph
The Roman Triumph
The Roman Triumph
Author: Mary Beard
Belknap Press
2007
Pages: 434
ISBN: 0674032187, 978-0674032187
Format: PDF
Size: 76 mb
Language: English

Listen to a short interview with Mary Beard Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he'd captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days.
A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph--but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar's chariot? Or when Pompey's elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general's show? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and "victory" in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory.
Her richly illustrated work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture--and for monarchs, dynasts and generals ever since. But how can we re-create the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes "history."

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 Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires
Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires
Author:
Walter Scheidel
Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Repost)
O/rd U,..ty P.ess
2009
Pages: 257
ISBN: 0195336909
Format: PDF
Size: 3 mb
Language: English
Quality: Good


Two thousand years ago, up to one-half of the human species was contained within two political systems, the Roman empire in western Eurasia (centered on the Mediterranean Sea) and the Han empire in eastern Eurasia (centered on the great North China Plain). Both empires were broadly comparable in terms of size and population, and even largely coextensive in chronological terms (221 BCE to 220 CE for the Qin/Han empire, c. 200 BCE to 395 CE for the unified Roman empire). At the most basic level of resolution, the circumstances of their creation are not very different. In the East, the Shang and Western Zhou periods created a shared cultural framework for the Warring States, with the gradual consolidation of numerous small polities into a handful of large kingdoms which were finally united by the westernmost marcher state of Qin. In the Mediterranean, we can observe comparable political fragmentation and gradual expansion of a unifying civilization, Greek in this case, followed by the gradual formation of a handful of major warring states (the Hellenistic kingdoms in the east, Rome-Italy, Syracuse and Carthage in the west), and likewise eventual unification by the westernmost marcher state, the Roman-led Italian confederation. Subsequent destabilization occurred again in strikingly similar ways: both empires came to be divided into two halves, one that contained the original core but was more exposed to the main barbarian periphery (the west in the Roman case, the north in China), and a traditionalist half in the east (Rome) and south (China).

These processes of initial convergence and subsequent divergence in Eurasian state formation have never been the object of systematic comparative analysis. This volume, which brings together experts in the history of the ancient Mediterranean and early China, makes a first step in this direction, by presenting a series of comparative case studies on clearly defined aspects of state formation in early eastern and western Eurasia, focusing on the process of initial developmental convergence. It includes a general introduction that makes the case for a comparative approach; a broad sketch of the character of state formation in western and eastern Eurasia during the final millennium of antiquity; and six thematically connected case studies of particularly salient aspects of this process.

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 Anatolia - Cauldron of Cultures
Anatolia - Cauldron of Cultures
Author: Collective
Anatolia - Cauldron of Cultures (Lost Civilizations Series)
Time-Life Books
1995
Format: PDF
Pages: 174
Language: English
Size: 26.7 MB

A fine series entry that deals with the variety of peoples and cultures in Anatolia, or modern Turkey. Chatal Hoyuk, in what is now south central Turkey, was excavated in the early 1960s and turned out to be one of the very first places that could be called a city. The excavators found evidence of a well-established agriculture, trade, and religion, all dating back to near the end of the Stone Age. Other archaeologists' efforts in Turkey have resulted in the discovery of the ancient empire of the Hittites, lost to history for centuries. These and several other little-known and understood civilizations are described. Numerous full-color photographs and illustrations add an extra dimension to the text. Readers with a background in ancient civilizations of the Near East will most benefit from this book.

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 The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World
Author: Adrienne Mayor
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World
Princeton University Press
2014
Format: PDF
Size: 10.6 Mb
Language: English

Amazons--fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world--were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.
But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.
Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons--Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.
Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

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 The History of the Incas
The History of the Incas
The History of the Incas
University of Texas Press
Author: Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Brian S. Bauer, Vania Smith and Jean-Jacques Decoster
2007
Pages: 284
Format: PDF
Size: 10 mb
Language: English

The History of the Incas may be the best description of Inca life and mythology to survive Spanish colonization of Peru. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a well-educated sea captain and cosmographer of the viceroyalty, wrote the document in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, just forty years after the arrival of the first Spaniards. The royal sponsorship of the work guaranteed Sarmiento direct access to the highest Spanish officials in Cuzco. It allowed him to summon influential Incas, especially those who had witnessed the fall of the Empire. Sarmiento also traveled widely and interviewed numerous local lords (curacas), as well as surviving members of the royal Inca families. Once completed, in an unprecedented effort to establish the authenticity of the work, Sarmiento's manuscript was read, chapter by chapter, to forty-two indigenous authorities for commentary and correction.

The scholars behind this new edition (the first to be published in English since 1907) went to similarly great lengths in pursuit of accuracy. Translators Brian Bauer and Vania Smith used an early transcript and, in some instances, the original document to create the text. Bauer and Jean-Jacques Decoster's introduction lays bare the biases Sarmiento incorporated into his writing. It also theorizes what sources, in addition to his extensive interviews, Sarmiento relied upon to produce his history. Finally, more than sixty new illustrations enliven this historically invaluable document of life in the ancient Andes.

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 The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age
The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age
The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age
Author: John Haywood
Routledge
2004
ISBN: 058250578X
Pages: 248
Language: English
Format: PDF
Size: 97 MB

This dramatic history traces the mysterious Celts from their dark origins, including Druids and King Arthur, right across Britain and Europe and looking at their beliefs, cultures and arts as well as their warring and expansion. The resurgence of Celtic identity in Britain and Europe has revitalized interest in Celtic history. At the same time, developments in genetics and archaeology have led to it becoming an arena of serious controversy. John Hayward explores the changing identity of Europe's Celtic speaking peoples through history, both as they saw themselves and as others saw them. Covering continental Europe, Britain and Ireland, and the present day Celtic global diaspora, this is a vibrant and meticulously researched account.

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 Pompeii: The Vanished City
Pompeii: The Vanished City
Pompeii: The Vanished City
Author: Dale Brown
Time Life Education
Graduation Year: 1992
Language: English
Quality: excellent
Format: Pdf
Pages: 168
Size: 35,5 Mb

Late in August of 1991 the Roman citv of Pompeii, already one of the world's most famous and fascinating archaeological sites, offered a fresh glimpse of the nightmare that had doomed it more than 1,900 years earlier. The excavators who made the discovery were not particularly looking for additional details of the tragic hours on August 24 and 25, AD 79, when the outpourings of nearby Mount Vesuvius overwhelmed the citv. The diggers were to make repairs: They had received funding of $23 million from the Italian government to clear pebbly volcanic rubble called lapilli from several still-buried city blocks of Pompeii and restore the buildings underneath. But in the course of removing the rocky debris, they came upon a thick blanket of hardened ash, which inevitably turned their labors in a new direction.

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 The Vandals
The Vandals
Author: Andrew Merrills, Richard Miles
The Vandals
Wiley-Blackwell
2010
Format: PDF
Size: 2.3 Mb
Language: English

The Vandals is the first book available in the English Language dedicated to exploring the sudden rise and dramatic fall of this complex North African Kingdom. This complete history provides a full account of the Vandals and re-evaluates key aspects of the society including:
- Political and economic structures such as the complex foreign policy which combined diplomatic alliances and marriages with brutal raiding
- The extraordinary cultural development of secular learning, and the religious struggles that threatened to tear the state apart
- The nature of Vandal identity from a social and gender perspective.

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 The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars
The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars
Author: Annelise Freisenbruch
The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars
Vintage Digital
2011
Format: pdf/epub/mobi
Size: 10.7 Mb
Language: English

Like their modern counterparts, the 'first ladies' of Rome were moulded to meet the political requirements of their emperors, be they fathers, husbands, brothers or lovers. But the women proved to be liabilities as well as assets - Augustus' daughter Julia was accused of affairs with at least five men, Claudius' wife Messalina was a murderous tease who cuckolded and humiliated her elderly husband, while Fausta tried to seduce her own stepson and engineered his execution before boiled to death as a punishment.
In The First Ladies of Rome Annelise Freisenbruch unveils the characters whose identities were to reverberate through the ages, from the virtuous consort, the sexually voracious schemer and the savvy political operator, to the flighty bluestocking, the religious icon and the romantic heroine.

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 Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age
Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age
Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age
Author: Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Vladimir A. Bashilov, Leonid T. Yablonsky
Zinat Press Berkeley
1995
ISBN: 1885979002
Pages: 399
Language: English
Format: PDF
Size: 35 MB

The only survey in English revealing through archaeology the lifestyles of the Scythians, Sauromatians, Sarmatians, and Saka, the earliest nomads in Eurasia.

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 Greek Gods & Goddesses
Greek Gods & Goddesses
Author: Michael Taft (Editor)
Greek Gods & Goddesses (Gods & Goddesses of Mythology)
Rosen Education Service
2014
Format: epub/pdf
Size: 11.5 Mb
Language: English

Greek mythology is the body of stories concerning the gods, heroes, and rituals of the ancient Greeks. That the myths contained a considerable element of fiction was recognized by the more critical Greeks, such as the philosopher Plato in the 5th–4th centuries BCE.
In general, however, in the popular piety of the Greeks, the myths were viewed as true accounts. Greek mythology has subsequently had extensive influence on the arts and literature of Western civilization, which fell heir to much of Greek culture.
Although people of all countries, eras, and stages of civilization have developed myths that explain the existence and workings of natural phenomena, recount the deeds of gods or heroes, or seek to justify social or political institutions, the myths of the Greeks have remained unrivaled in the Western world as sources of imaginative and appealing ideas. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in Classical mythological themes.

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 Time Frame - The Human Dawn
Time Frame - The Human Dawn
Author: Collective
Time Frame - The Human Dawn
Time-Life Books
1990
Format: PDF
Pages: 184
Language: English
Size: 27 MB

It begins with a rundown of evolution leading to man. The first chapter covers early ape men. The second deals with the early homos including Neanderthal; the second half of the chapter discussing the first anatomically correct modern man. (Cromagnon man isn't mentioned, possibly because the were so like modern man they might as well be called modern man.). The third chapter details how man began to settle down and domesticate plants and animals. The last chapter tells about the beginnings to civilization. At the end of the book, as in all books in this series, is a chronology showing what was happening at the same time in several different areas to the world.

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 A New History of the Peloponnesian War
A New History of the Peloponnesian War
Author: Donald Kagan
A New History of the Peloponnesian War
Cornell University Press
2013
Format: PDF
Size: 125.7 Mb
Language: English

A New History of the Peloponnesian War is an ebook-only omnibus edition that includes all four volumes of Donald Kagan's acclaimed account of the war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.): The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, The Archidamian War, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, and The Fall of the Athenian Empire. Reviewing the four-volume set in The New Yorker, George Steiner wrote, "The temptation to acclaim Kagan's four volumes as the foremost work of history produced in North America in the twentieth century is vivid. . . . Here is an achievement that not only honors the criteria of dispassion and of unstinting scruple which mark the best of modern historicism but honors its readers."

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 An Album of Maya Architecture
An Album of Maya Architecture
An Album of Maya Architecture
Author: Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Dover Publications
Native American
2003
ISBN: 978-0486424842
Pages: 107
Language: English
Format: DJVU
Size: 17 MB

Magnificent guide presents 36 sites from Central America and southern Mexico as they appeared more than a thousand years ago: Temple of the Cross, Palenque; Acropolis and Maya sweat bath, Piedras Negras; Red House and north terrace at Chichen Itza; more. Each illustration features text of archeological finds and line drawing of remains. 95 illustrations.

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