
What Is Ancient History?
by Walter Scheidel
Narrated by Michael Langan
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Pub Date 22 Apr 2025 | Archive Date 29 Apr 2025
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Description
It's easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history-obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history-a global history that captures antiquity's pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today.
For Scheidel, ancient history is when the earliest versions of today's ways of life were created and spread-from farming, mining, and engineering to housing and transportation, cities and government, writing and belief systems. Transforming the planet, this process unfolded all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, often at different times, sometimes haltingly but ultimately unstoppably. Yet it's rarely studied or taught that way.
The time has come, Scheidel argues, to put the ancient world back together-by moving beyond the limitations of Greco-Roman "classics," by systematically comparing ancient societies, and by exploring early exchanges and connections between them. The time has come, in other words, for an ancient history for everyone.
Advance Praise
“This is a brilliant, glorious flamethrower of a book. Walter Scheidel adds new heft to the exploding discussion of a global turn in ancient history, and offers everyone in the field a new way forward—not for a managed decline but for a fresh start.” —Josephine Quinn, author of How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History
Available Editions
EDITION | Audiobook, Unabridged |
ISBN | 9781696617567 |
PRICE | US$24.99 (USD) |
DURATION | 10 Hours, 26 Minutes |
Available on NetGalley
NetGalley Shelf App (AUDIO)
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