Understanding the events that have come before us and how they have shaped the world we live in is a fascinating subject. So often, we focus on specifi c dates such as 1066, 1215, 1914 and 1945, but there’s so much more – going back so much further – that should be recognised. In Volume 1 of this book, we take you from ancient civilisations to medieval times, covering the origins of humanity and ancient Egypt to the rise of the Roman empire and the emergence of the Vikings. • DOCUMENTING THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD •
(12 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)The ancient civilizations of the Near East can seem remote. For many of us, places such as Mesopotamia or the Indus valley ... or the Hittite or Assyrian peoples ... or rulers such as Sargon, Hammurabi, and Darius ... are part of a long-dead antiquity, so shrouded with dust that we might be tempted to skip over them entirely, preferring to race forward along history's timeline in search of the riches we know will be found in our studies of Greece and Rome.
Where did Cinderella come from? Puss in Boots? Rapunzel? The origins of fairy tales are looked at in a new way in these highly engaging pages. Conventional wisdom holds that fairy tales originated in the oral traditions of peasants and were recorded for posterity by the Brothers Grimm during the nineteenth century. Ruth B. Bottigheimer overturns this view in a lively account of the origins of these well-loved stories. Charles Perrault created Cinderella and her fairy godmother, but no countrywoman whispered this tale into Perrault’s ear.
