Ancient Politics

The Three Sisters is Anton Chekhov's 1901 play about the Prosorov family, who are stuck in a provincial Russian town. The sisters - Olga, Masha, and Irina - fantasize about one day returning to Moscow. Meanwhile, their brother Andrey courts village girl Natasha, and the family socializes with the soldiers stationed nearby. Dreams, longing, and illicit love drive the action of Chekhov's comic drama.

Vows is both a moving memoir of two marriages and a thoughtful meditation on marriage itself. Cheryl Mendelson tackles the sociology of commitment through our most traditional promises and shows why they endure.

According to the Japanese philosophy of Ikigai, the existence of each of us has a purpose, a real mission that must be pursued to find maximum gratification in our days. It is no coincidence that anyone who has discovered what their purpose is is happier, more satisfied, energetic, and able to face any difficulty that fate puts before them. Living life according to our ikigai leads to enormous benefits in personal and work relationships, and it allows us to act as fulfilled and successful people full of joy in carrying out our projects.

Suppose knowledge of the foundational principle of mind and consciousness had been lost thousands of years ago. How would we know it? We wouldn't — until it was rediscovered. Richard L. Haight, three-time award-winning author, has uncovered and decoded an ancient principle that has lain dormant, hidden for thousands of years within Genesis, the first book of The Holy Bible.

A witty, inspiring reckoning with the ancient Greek and Roman myths and their legacy, from what they can illuminate about #MeToo to the radical imagery of Beyoncé.

Many of us know little about Archimedes other than his "Eureka" exclamation upon discovering that he could immerse an object in a full tub of water and measure the spillage to determine the object's weight. That seemingly simple observation not only proved to King Hieron II of Syracuse that a certain amount of silver had been used in what was supposed to be his solid-gold crown, it established the key principles of buoyancy that govern the flotation of hot-air balloons, ships, and denizens of the sea.

In search of an ideal civilization, Socrates leads Glaucon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and others in debates about various subjects, including justice, truth, class, and art. For without righteousness, tyranny and injustice give rise to oligarchy. The influential dialogues of The Republic helped shape all of Western literature and philosophical thought. It is as much a doctrine of ethics and politics now as it was for the ancient Greeks, and its dilemma remains: how to create a perfect society populated by very imperfect human beings.

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine, Greece as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.

Over their long lives, Greek myths have expressed a myriad of meanings. This erudite yet accessible exploration examines how the world's most influential myths have survived to the present, and how they have shaped our ideas on everything from family and society to sexuality and culture.

It may be the most interesting and yet loneliest spot on Earth: a volcanic rock surrounded by a million square miles of ocean, named for the day Dutch explorers discovered it, Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722. Here, people created a complex society, sophisticated astronomy, exquisite wood sculpture, monumental stone architecture, roads, and a puzzling ideographic script. And then they went about sculpting amazing, giant human figures in stone.

The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today. But the truth behind these stories of the exotic other can be hard to discover, lost amongst the legend of Sparta which was even perpetuated by later Spartans, who ran a thriving tourist industry that exaggerated the famed brutality of their ancestors. As Andrew Bayliss explores in this book, there was also much to admire in ancient Sparta.

The Fens is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in, excavated, farmed, walked and loved the Fen Country for more than 40 years: its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings. In The Fens, he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.

Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights—glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth—embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from antiquity, medieval, and modern times. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries.

The ancient Romans have one of the richest collections of myths of all the early civilizations. In this book you can discover all the most important Roman gods, important Roman myths, the history of Rome, and much more.

Tao and the Four Pillars of Influence stands apart as a business book. It speaks ancient wisdom to the modern-day leader, while providing practical and tangible actions that lead to high levels of sustainable influence. The book is an easy-to-follow roadmap to creating lasting change in your workplace, community and family, while navigating chaotic and demanding environments.

Born from a strange mixture of divine blood, severed genitals, and seafoam, Aphrodite washed up on the shores of Cyprus long before the emergence of her fellow Olympians. A figure who is as petty as she is relatable, she is not only a key deity of the Greek pantheon, but she is also a central figure in many of the myths we know and love. While it would be impossible to gather all the different stories related to Aphrodite in their entirety in one collection, this audiobook provides a nice, if modest, assortment of narratives that display different facets of this fascinating goddess.

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusion whims and seeing them carried them out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. Whatever their background, these rulers show that dynastic politics made sure that a rightful heir always got on the throne - despite that heir's mental condition - and that power can destroy a mind worse than any mental illness.

While Nebuchadnezzar’s name lives on mostly due to the Bible and the Hanging Gardens, behind it all was a man documented by the Babylonians and his contemporaries as a competent and successful king.

Leonard Woolley, an archaeologist from Britain, returned to Iraq in 1922, almost 4,000 years after the ancient nuclear catastrophe, to uncover ancient Mesopotamia. An imposing ziggurat standing out in the desert plain drew him to the nearby site of Tell el-Muqayyar, where he began excavating. As old walls, artifacts, and inscriptions were unearthed, he realized he was digging up ancient Ur of the Chaldees. Woolley's discovery of a cemetery dated thousands of years ago, including unique "royal" tombs discovered by digging at its edges, is the find of the century.

Maat is an ancient Egyptian goddess who represents truth, justice, and balance. She is often associated with the concept of Maat, which is the principle of truth, order, justice, and balance in the Universe. Followers of Maat believe that it is our responsibility to uphold these principles in our own lives and the world around us.