Showing titles in Civilization

Brought to you by Penguin. An erudite and entertaining history of Moscow, a city whose rich past offers crucial insight into contemporary global politics Moscow stands at the centre of a nation comprising eleven percent of the globe’s landmass, eleven time zones and nearly one hundred and...

Reveals the profound influence of the Denisovans and their hybrid descendants upon the flowering of human civilization around the world Traces the migrations of the sophisticated Denisovans and their interbreeding with Neanderthals and early human populations more than 40,000 years ago ...

The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums BC. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them.

From the author of ‘Wartime’ and ‘The Thirties’comes an outstanding history of the most prolonged and devastating attack ever endured by Britain's civilian population – the Blitz. September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's sustained attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight...

Brought to you by Penguin. From breakups that ended empires to naps that sank ships, 10 Mistakes That Changed History reveals how overlooked historical errors are responsible for some of the most era-defining events of the past. Featuring many of the most recognisable characters and episodes in...

The Age of Railways was an era of extraordinary change which utterly transformed every aspect of British life – from trade and transportation to health and recreation. Full Steam Ahead reveals how the world we live in today is entirely shaped by the rail network, charting the glorious...

An upstart French duke who sets out to conquer the most powerful and unified kingdom in Christendom. An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought.

Based on the highly acclaimed podcast with over 1 million subscribers, Fall of Civilizations brilliantly explores how a range of ancient societies rose to power and sophistication, and how they tipped over into collapse. Across the centuries, we journey from the great empires of Mesopotamia to those of Khmer and Vijayanagara in Asia and Songhai in West Africa; from Byzantium to the Maya, Inca and Aztec empires of the Americas; from Roman Britain to Rapa Nui.

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness.

Timeless: A History of the Catholic Church is a fresh retelling of the history of the Church. In this easy, not-your-average history book, Steve Weidenkopf introduces you to the vivid, dynamic story of God's work in the world since Pentecost. Along the way, you will meet the weird, wonderful, and always fascinating heroes and villains of the Catholic family tree.

Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays showcases the Hitchens rejection of consensus and cliché, whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson, and Michael Bloomberg.

Na nova edição do livro que conquistou milhões de leitores ao redor do mundo, Yuval Noah Harari questiona tudo o que sabemos sobre a trajetória humana no planeta ao explorar quem somos, como chegamos até aqui e por quais caminhos ainda poderemos seguir. Com narração de Antonio Fagundes.

From the city sundials of ancient Rome to the era of the smartwatch, clocks have been used throughout history to wield power, make money, govern citizens and keep control. Sometimes, also with clocks, we have fought back. In About Time, time expert David Rooney tells the story of timekeeping, and how it continues to shape our modern world. In 12 chapters, demarcated like the hours of time, we meet the greatest inventions in horological history, from medieval water clocks to monumental sundials, and from coastal time signals to satellites in Earth's orbit.

Rise and Fall opens with the Akkadian Empire, which ruled over a vast expanse of the region of ancient Mesopotamia, then turns to the immense Roman Empire, where we trace back our Western and Eastern roots. Next Strathern describes how a great deal of Western classical culture was developed in the Abbasid and Umayyid Caliphates. Then, while Europe was beginning to emerge from a period of cultural stagnation, it almost fell to a whirlwind invasion from the East, at which point we meet the Emperors of the Mongol Empire....

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. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.

In exploring how the Christian religion became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a small sect of isolated congregations was transformed into a mass movement centrally directed from Rome, Heather shows how Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies' and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, which left the religion teetering on the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution in which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation.

In a bold and magisterial work of immense scope, Josephine Quinn argues that the real story of the West is much bigger than this established paradigm leads us to believe. So much of our shared history has been lost, drowned out by the concept – developed in the Victorian era – of separate ‘civilisations’. Moving from the Bronze Age to the Age of Exploration, How the World Made the West reveals a new narrative: one that traces the millennia of global encounters and exchange that built what is now called the West, as societies met, tangled and sometimes grew apart.

Humanly Possible is a wide-ranging, personal, thought-provoking and entertaining journey through the battle of ideas over some 700 years of history—mostly, but not exclusively, in Europe. Through a mixture of biography and philosophy, Bakewell seeks to understand what humanism is, why it has continued to flourish despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, tyrants and cultural pessimists of all kinds, and exactly why we should value and defend it in the 21st century.

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.

Explores how our ancestors used shamanic rituals at sacred sites to create portals for communication with nonhuman intelligences Shares supporting evidence from the spiritual and shamanic beliefs of more than 100 Native American tribes Shows how the earliest forms of shamanism began...