History Ages

At the end of Eric Cline's bestselling history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world.

The Lost History of Christianity will change how we understand Christian and world history. Leading religion scholar Philip Jenkins reveals a vast Christian world to the east of the Roman Empire and how the earliest, most influential churches of the East---those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church---died. In this paradigm-shifting book, Jenkins recovers a lost history, showing how the center of Christianity for centuries used to be the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, extending as far as China.

We tend to think about the Middle Ages as a dark and backward time, characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. We believe that life was unchanging over the period, so if a peasant fell asleep in in the year 1000 and woke up six hundred years later, he would return to a world that was instantly recognisable. We hold that change is facilitated by science and technological innovation, and that it was the inventions of recent centuries, from the steam engine to the Internet, that created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.

This is the third volume in Churchill's famous account. During the long period of 1688 to 1815, three revolutions took place, and all led to war between the British and the French.

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, its the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice.

Spend an entire year investigating the fascinating story of the modern world, from the American Civil War through the end of the twentieth century—from Europe and the Middle East through India, China, the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, and both North and South America!

Christopher Columbus is one of the most famous explorers of all time, but he was neither the first nor last adventurer to ever stumble upon a great discovery. From the Silk Road of Asia to the icy shores of Antarctica, our knowledge of the world today is in large part due to several intrepid pioneers, risking life and limb for the sake of exploration. After all, setting off into the dark unknown requires an enormous amount of bravery. But every explorer quickly learns that courage and curiosity aren't enough to save you if you can't read a map or trespass on somebody else's land!

When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill on the American River, it completely transformed the territory of California. Hundreds of thousands of people sped to California by any means possible, and small cities sprung up to service their needs as they sought the precious metal. By 1850, California had become a state; it had also become a symbol of where the nation was going.

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother’s protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood.

Based on extensive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, Tripped is a wild, unconventional postwar history, a spiritual sequel to Norman Ohler’s New York Times bestseller Blitzed. Revealing the close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis and the early days of drugs in America, Ohler shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs for decades and eventually became part of the foundation of America’s War on Drugs.

Humans have long sought to comprehend the enormities of cosmic space and time. Here, best selling science writer Timothy Ferris tells the story of that quest. He interweaves the majestic themes of astronomy, physics, religion, and philosophy with fresh and lasting portraits of the men and women who created what has been called our society's most precious treasure - its conception of the universe at large.

After the Gods. After the myths and legends came the world of Men. In their front rank stood Pericles. The Lion of the Golden Age. Experience the epic battlefields of Ancient Greece with master storyteller Conn Iggulden.

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? 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. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted.

Tim Newark’s lively narrative answers the most commonly asked questions about the Dark Ages. Who were the Vandals and the Goths? What were Attila the Hun and Charlemagne really like? From surviving contemporary literature and artifacts now shrouded in myth and legend, Newark reconstructs the battles, campaigns, sieges, and legendary leaders of one of the most mysterious eras of European history.

In this classic account of madness, Michel Foucault shows once and for all why he is one of the most distinguished European philosophers since the end of World War II. Madness and Civilization, Foucault's first book and his finest accomplishment, will change the way in which you think about society. Evoking shock, pity, and fascination, it might also make you question the way you think about yourself.

Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.

This pamphlet offers a condensed history of Europe between the fall of the Roman empire and the twelfth century. The author’s profound anti-clerical bias becomes apparent as he explores the influence of Christianity on a world in which order was maintained by the imposition of violence, and in which the general populace was kept in a state of ignorance and serfdom. He supports his conclusions with quotes from his own translations of documents of the period.

Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization, they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated.