The History of the Ancient World: Brief Book Review
History, from the Beginning (Book #6)
In 2018 I realised my knowledge of history was just plain bad. This series charts my re-education, starting from the big bang and working my way to present day one book at a time. (Learn more)
I could not have asked for a better guide through the next chapter of history than Susan Wise Bauer in The History of the Ancient World and her subsequent books.
In this book Bauer makes it clear that classical societies like the Egyptians, Romans or Greeks didn’t just *pop* into existence. Civilisation, as it turns out, is rife with growing pains.
Across 800 expertly detailed pages, readers witness the unstable evolution of human society, exploding into life one minute (often through the will of a ruthless dictator) only to disintegrate the next. It’s a dizzying cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth.
It would have been easy to get lost in the monotony of dictators, wars and political takeovers. Yet the author also gives time to levity, taking a moment here and there to indulge in a humorous anecdote. One of my favourites is regarding one of Hammurabi’s laws which stated “if a man goes to fight a fire at his neighbour’s house and pinches any of his neighbour’s goods under cover of smoke, he ‘shall be thrown into the fire’”.
However don’t let that fool you into thinking this is not a serious work of scholarly history. The 300+ cited works listed at the end should be evidence enough of Bauer’s dedication to accuracy and thoroughness. Her achievement here is remarkable.
