Civilization

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it. Us....

From the best-selling author of The Templars, Dan Jones' epic new history tells nothing less than the story of how the world we know today came to be built....

Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present....

From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series....

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilisation, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts....

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

The New York Times best-selling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live — how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die....

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

For centuries fame and fortune were to be found in the West - in the New World of the Americas. Today it is the East that calls out to those in search of adventure and riches....

A riveting and authoritative history of the single most important event in English history: The Norman Conquest....

Professor Llewellyn-Jones calls upon original Achaemenid sources, including inscriptions, art and recent archaeological discoveries in Iran, to create an authentic 'Persian Version' of this remarkable first great empire of antiquity—the Age of the Great Kings....

From Graham Hancock, best-selling author of Fingerprints of the Gods, comes a mesmerizing book that takes us on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a lost civilization that's been hidden for thousands of years beneath the world's oceans....

In The End Is Always Near, Dan Carlin connects the past and future in fascinating and colourful ways, exploring a question that has hung over humanity like the sword of Damocles from the collapse of the Bronze Age to the nuclear era - that of human survival....

From award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in 16th-century Portugal....

Mudlark (/'mAdla;k/) noun a person who scavenges for usable debris in the mud of a river or harbour....

Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old....

Dynasty tells the story of Rome's first dynasty of emperors, from its establishment by Augustus Caesar in the last decades of the first century BC to its final, florid extinction....

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece....

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen....

The first major book on Vikings by a Scandinavian author to be published in English reframes the struggle for a North Sea empire and puts listeners in the mindset of Vikings, providing new insight into their goals, values, and what they chose to live and die for....

In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more....

Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome is a comprehensive and enthralling introduction to Ancient civilisation....

When we talk about human history, we focus on great leaders, mass migration and decisive wars. But how has the Earth itself determined our destiny? How has our planet made us? Find out.... 

Spend 24 hours with the ancient Athenians. See the city through their eyes as it teeters on the edge of the fateful war that would end its golden age....

 The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning....

In Lost Realms, Thomas Williams, bestselling author of Viking Britain, uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of nine kingdoms that hover in the twilight between history and fable, whose stories hum with saints and gods and miracles, with giants and battles and the ruin of cities. Why did some realms—like Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and Gwynedd—prosper while these nine fell? Williams brings together new archaeological revelations with the few precious fragments of written sources to have survived to rebuild a lost world.

When scholars study the history of the ancient Near East, several wars that had extremely brutal consequences (at least by modern standards) often stand out. Forced removal of entire populations, sieges that decimated entire cities, and wanton destruction of property were all tactics used by the various peoples of the ancient Near East against each other, but the Assyrians were the first people to make war a science. When the Assyrians are mentioned, images of war and brutality are among the first that come to mind, despite the fact that their culture prospered for nearly 2,000 years.

Originally published in 1915 in the middle of World War I, Carpenter explores the effects that the war was having on society and humankind as a whole from firsthand experience. In particular, papers focus on the differences between Germany and England, the causes of the war, and suggestions for restoration and recovery when the war has ended. Carpenter details all of this in a realistic way, drawing on matters such as class to put forward his anti-war stance as well as philosophical approaches to coping with tragedy. 

A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them—an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music—returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other—a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan—ends up as the national poet of Portugal.

Over the past five million years, our species has spread from the plains of East Africa to every inhabitable landmass on our planet. Combinations of our technological know-how, scientific knowledge, and complex societies have allowed humanity to shape and affect our environment more than any of our fellow species, even to the point of our peril. How did we get to this situation? What are some of our ancestors' choices as individuals, societies, and species that shaped our history to the present day?

The Persian Empire was the world's first hyperpower, with territory stretching from Central Asia to Northeastern Africa and from Southeastern Europe to the Indus Valley. It was the dominant geopolitical force from the later sixth century to its conquest by Alexander in the 330s BCE. Much of the empire's territory was conquered by its founder, Cyrus the Great, who reigned from 559-530 BCE. 

It is believed that the Circassians—the English translation of the Turkish term Cherkess—emerged as a discrete society or entity around the 10th century CE, although there are references to them before this. In fact, the Circassians are believed to be the oldest indigenous people of the North Caucasus and self-identified as Adyghe. Historians believe the first settlers appeared some 300,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the history and culture of Circassia and the Circassians is largely unknown in the English-speaking and wider world outside Central Asia and the Caucasus.

This audiobook details the movement of people and cultures around the world - from the early migrations of Homo erectus out of Africa 50,000 years ago to modern refugee movements and migrations. Through intimate first hand accounts, Migrations explores famous (and infamous) movements in history, from the Middle Passage and Trail of Tears to the California Gold Rush and the Windrush generation.

 The Fate of Empires analyzes many of the commonly held traits of the world’s historic empires and demonstrates how the presence or absence of these can determine the outcome of these societies. The author isolates two main forces operating in advanced civilizations: the urge to reproduce as well as competition among members of society.  

Don't think that because it is such a small country with only about 17 million people, it should be neglected. The Netherlands has a long history, with a high influence on our cultures, trading routes, the stock market, business, and art. The Dutch were all over the world. They "owned" and colonized a big portion of what was then the known world. They were among the first settlers, had the biggest haven, and biggest fleet for some time. The Dutch East-Indian Trading Company, or VOC, is probably the biggest or at least one of the biggest companies that has ever existed.