What Is Ancient History?

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Synopsis
From one of today&’s most innovative ancient historians, a provocative new vision of why ancient history matters—and why it needs to be told in a radically different, global wayIt&’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. Since the eighteenth century, Western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world, driven not only by their quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealization of Greece and Rome. Specialized scholarship has fractured into numerous academic niches, obscuring broader patterns and dynamics and keeping us from understanding just how much humanity has long had in common.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.
Copyright:
2025

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
328 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780691236674
Related ISBNs:
9780691236650, 9780691236667
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Princeton University Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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