Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors
In Foundation, the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England’s prehistory to the death, in 1509, of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country’s most distant past—and Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house—and describes in rich prose the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French.
Rome and the Barbarians tells the story of the complex relationships between Celts, Goths, Huns, Persians and their Roman conquerors as they intermarried, exchanged ideas and, in the ensuing provincial Roman cultures, formed the basis of European civilization.
With the recent success of "Rome" on BBC2, no one will look at the private lives of the Roman Emperors again in the same light. Anthony Blond's scandalous expose of the life of the Caesars is a must-read for all interested in what really went on in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar is usually presented as a glorious general when in fact he was an arrogant charmer and a swank; Augustus was so conscious of his height that he put lifts in his sandals. But they were nothing compared to Caligula, Claudius and Nero. This book is fascinating reading, eye-opening in its revelations and effortlessly entertaining.
36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture Taught by John R. Hale University of Louisville Ph.D. Cambridge University
On October 22, 1738, an engineer in the army of the Bourbon royal family in Naples had himself lowered down a well shaft to begin the first systematic study of an ancient wonder just then coming to light: the astonishingly intact ruins of the Roman city of Herculaneum, buried in the eruption of Vesuvius almost 1,700 years earlier. This trip down a well not only marks the beginning of Classical archaeology but also ...
Blending vividly written essays and over a hundred attractive illustrations--including 32 color plates--The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is a stunningly designed and authoritative account of the once glorious civilization on the Nile. Ranging from 700,000 BC to 311 AD, this volume portrays the emergence and development of Egypt from its prehistoric roots to its conquest by the Roman Empire. The contributors incorporate the latest findings in archaeological research as they chart the principal political events of Egyptian history, from the rise of the Pharaohs and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, to the ascension of the Ptolemies and the coming of Roman legions.