Showing titles in Civilization

In this captivating guide, you will discover why Maya have gained such worldwide admiration over the many other civilizations that existed in Mesoamerica at the time. You will learn how the Maya civilization developed, the major turning points in their 3,000-year-long history, the mysteries surrounding their demise, and some of the unique places where Maya exist to this day. In the first part of this audiobook, you will discover the origins of the Maya civilization and the Mesoamerican cultures that may have influenced them.

In each chapter of How to Survive History, Cody Cassidy explores how to survive one of history's greatest threats: succumbing to the lava flows of Pompeii, drowning on board the Titanic, falling prey to the Black Death, and more. Using hindsight and modern science to estimate everything from how fast you'd need to run to outpace a T. rex to the advantages of different body types in surviving the Donner Party tragedy, Cassidy gives you a detailed battle plan for survival, helping you learn about the era at the same time

The Sumerians settled in the area known as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, around 5,000 years ago. They produced many fundamental changes to the way in which human societies developed - these were the first city-builders, the first people to use wheeled vehicles, the first methodical astronomers, and the first people to develop a sophisticated written language. The Sumerians also produced art, music, and literature as well as created some of the first professional soldiers the world had ever seen.

Understanding the origins of civil wars and their trajectories therefore demands some appreciation of the economic, political, social, cultural, and geographic order of societies. If there is one factor that best predicts why a civil war erupts, it is a prior civil war. That is why knowledge of a country's history of political violence, and associated narratives about who is to blame and why, are critical to understanding where a civil war might next occur.

We live within the ruins of an ancient civilization whose size has rendered it invisible. Remembered in myth as Atlantis, Lemuria, or other lost world archetypes, the remains of this advanced civilization have lain buried for millennia beneath the deserts and oceans of the world. Investigating the perennial myth of a forgotten fountainhead of civilization, J. Douglas Kenyon presents extensive physical and spiritual evidence of a lost great culture, the collective amnesia that wiped it from planetary memory, and the countless ways ancient catastrophes still haunt modern civilization.

We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes listeners on a fascinating and wide ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history.

The years 1800-1940 were the heyday of the independent explorer—free-spirited, mostly European adventurers who took incredible risks in pursuit of discovery and fame.

In this innovative and compelling work of environmental history, Philipp Blom chronicles the great climate crisis of the 1600s, a crisis that would transform the entire social and political fabric of Europe. While hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, by the end of the 16th century the temperature plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbours were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky and ‘frost fairs’ were erected on a frozen Thames - with kiosks, taverns and even brothels that became a semipermanent part of the city.

According to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, 64 AD and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia - and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. In Rome Is Burning, distinguished Roman historian Anthony Barrett sets the record straight, providing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Great Fire of Rome, its immediate aftermath, and its damaging long term consequences for the Roman world.

There is no record of Marco Polo ever visiting the Andaman Islands, so his brief description of the islanders must have been drawn from a secondary source. They were, he wrote, “a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth like those of dogs. They are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”

Modernity developed only in the West - in Europe and North America. Nowhere else did science and democracy arise; nowhere else was slavery outlawed. Only Westerners invented chimneys, musical scores, telescopes, eyeglasses, pianos, electric lights, aspirin, and soap. The question is, why? Unfortunately, that question has become so politically incorrect that most scholars avoid it. But acclaimed author Rodney Stark provides the answers in this sweeping new look at Western civilization.

For those who seek inspiration from the great civilizations of the past, Golden Laurels, Silver Seas offers an accessible, comprehensive, and engaging survey of ancient Greek history. From the devastating Trojan War to the Hellenistic Greek Kingdoms fighting to succeed Alexander, here’s your chance to learn all the key events that marked the history and culture of the ancient Greeks.

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.

Embark on a Captivating Journey through the Epochs of Human History.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

Runes—the cryptic letters of an Old Norse alphabet—are more than just a collection of dusty symbols from a bygone era. They're powerful forces that have long been associated with magic and divination. Since ancient times, people have used them for guidance, and they're still being used today. In fact, more and more people are discovering the mysterious power of runes and are incorporating them into their daily spiritual practices.

The early modern era in Europe set the mold for the Western world today. It was a complex, tragic, yet pivotal time. It marked the transition between the dominance of the Catholic church throughout Western Europe and the present age of science, reason, and skepticism. The path through this transition was an exciting yet bloody and sorrowful one. The wars between Catholics and Protestants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rivaled those of the present in cruelty and atrocity. Durant takes us through the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in France.

When a team of Victorian archaeologists began to dig into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest stores of knowledge ever seen: a library. As they excavated, and deciphered the library’s forgotten languages, they discovered that it had belonged to Ashurbanipal, a scholar king and conqueror who had ruled the kingdom of Assyria over two thousand years before. Assyriologist Selena Wisnom has spent years studying the tablets and is our expert, lively guide through the library stacks.

Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization, they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated.

The history and evolution of land ownership is a fascinating chronicle in the history of civilization, offering unexpected insights about how various forms of democracy and capitalism developed, as well as a revealing analysis of a future where the Earth must sustain nine billion lives. Seen through the eyes of remarkable individuals - Chinese emperors; German peasants; the 17th century English surveyor William Petty, who first saw the connection between private property and free-market capitalism.