Showing titles in Civilisation

The story of human civilization can be read most deeply in the materials we have found or created, used or abused. They have dictated how we build, eat, communicate, wage war, create art, travel, and worship. Some, such as stone, iron, and bronze, lend their names to the ages. Others, such as gold, silver, and diamond, contributed to the rise and fall of great empires.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century...

Though perhaps less well-known today than the great empires that surrounded them, the historic peoples of Central Asia—such as the Scythians, the Sogdians, the Xiongnu nomads of Mongolia, the Turkic peoples, and many others—produced cultures of major significance. In the 24 lectures of Crossroads of Civilization: A History of Central Asia, taught by Professor Eren Tasar, you will embark on a wide-ranging journey into the majestic landscapes, steppe and desert cultures, resplendent cities, and epic conquests that characterized this mysterious part of the world.

In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What...

LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD "One of those books that changes the way you see the world. Gripping, urgent, important." ED CONWAY "This wonderful book is as welcome as it is overdue ... shines a much-needed light on this essential topic." RORY...

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

The most authoritative and highly regarded single-volume history of India – from ancient time to the modern day. Five millennia of the sub-continent’s social, economic, political and cultural history are interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East. India’s history...

For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west—in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China and India, is taking centre stage in international politics, commerce and culture—and is shaping the modern world. This region, the true centre of the earth, is obscure to many in the English-speaking world. Yet this is where civilization itself began, where the world’s great religions were born and took root.

Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India—which includes today’s India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan—and the people who have lived there.

PERSIANS is a definitive new history of the Persian Empire, the world's first superpower. The Great Kings of Persia ruled over the largest Empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the Steppes of Asia, and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. At the heart of the Empire was the fabled palace-city of...

Graham Hancock's multi-million best seller Fingerprints of the Gods remains an astonishing, deeply controversial, wide-ranging investigation of the mysteries of our past and the evidence for Earth's lost civilisation. Twenty years on, Hancock returns with a book filled with completely new, scientific and archaeological evidence, which has only recently come to light....

Civilization was born 8,000 years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period.

“A delightful and fascinating book filled with insight and wit, which will make you think twice and cheer up.” — Steven Pinker In a bold and provocative interpretation of economic history, Matt Ridley, the New York Times-bestselling author of Genome and The Red Queen, makes the case for an...

A sweeping history of humanity's most fundamental creation—the home—and its effects on the land, cities, and people themselves. From tiny pit–houses in the Levant and Mesoamerica thousands of years ago to soaring skyscrapers in Dubai, New York, and Shanghai today, Dwelling on Earth takes...

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.

The Indus rises in Tibet, flows west across India, and south through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god; for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion. Empires of the Indus follows the river upstream and back in time, taking the listener on a voyage through two thousand miles of geography and more than five thousand years of history redolent with contemporary importance.

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.

With flair and authority, historian and archaeologist Ian Morris draws uniquely on 15,000 years of history to offer fresh insights on what the future will bring. Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why The West Rules - For Now is a gripping and truly original history of the world.

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology ever peak or regress? And why, since the dawn of time, has it always seemed as though death and destruction are waiting just around...