Ever since Karl Jasper's "axial age" paradigm, there have been a number of influential studies comparing ancient East Asian and Greco-Roman history and culture. Most of these have centered on the emergence of the world's philosophical and religious traditions, or on models of empire building. However, to date there has been no comparative study involving literatures of multiple traditions in the ancient East Asian and Mediterranean cultural spheres. At first glance, it would appear that the literary cultures of early Japan and Rome share little in common with each other. Yet both were intimately connected with the literature of antecedent "reference cultures," China and Greece respectively.
Appropriate for a high-school and general audience, this addition to the publisher's History of Science series describes scientific concepts in ancient societies, including the Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman worlds until the fall of the Roman Empire. Most of the entries are about people, concepts, and locales of the Greco-Roman world. Arrangement is alphabetical, supported by good cross-references and indexing.
