Ancient Worlds: The Search for the Origins of Western Civilization (2010) was
written to accompany the six-part television series shown on BBC.
It is ‘not a history of mankind, but of civilization,’ Miles states.
Mankind has been around for 160,000 years, but civilization started about 6,000
years ago. The book covers the Northern Hemisphere (or half the world).
Civilization is not easy to define. Miles defines it as ‘when humans began
to cooperate, to live and work together in communities much larger and more
complex than their immediate kinship groups.’ He says that it is ‘tempting to
see civilization as incremental … fundamentally a steady progression’ but in
fact there are periods of ‘brilliance and innovation’ as well as regressions.
The author begins with Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and the
Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq about 250 kilometres from Baghdad in
Babylon and almost concurrently in Tell Brak in modern day Syria.
After Mesopotamia, he discusses Egypt’s Bronze Age of the Pharaohs, the
Phoenicians (the Sea Peoples of the Meditteranean), the Assyrian Empire, the
Greek Empire, the Persian Empire, and the Roman Empire.
He focuses on the importance of geography, particularly in terms of
settlement. But he also focuses on cities, rulers, the rule of law, politics,
the structure of societies, communication, daily routines, friends and enemies
(foreign and domestic), cooperation and conflict, and the internal and external
circumstances that make civilizations fragile or strong.
The Egyptian section is interesting, where Miles says that Bronze Age
rulers were ‘far more likely to be killed by relatives and courtiers than by
foreign enemies on the battlefield.’ The first olympic games in Olympia,
Greece, is also interesting – for the sporting battles rather than military
ones.
Another fascinating section is the chapter on ‘The Alexander Enigma’ about 4th
century Alexander the Great, the (self-proclaimed) King of Asia. How could one
man achieve so much in such a short time – considering he died at 32 years of
age? Was he a ‘village idiot’ or ‘a rogue with a global appetite for plunder’
or simply ‘great’? His legacy of conquered lands was split into four
territorial units after his death, and it was his successors that ‘Hellenized’
the countries. This Hellenization included the Library in Alexandria, in Egypt,
and ‘under Ptolemy, knowledge rather than the sword would become the dominant
currency of prestige and power.’
Ancient Worlds is an easy-to-follow and understandable documentary as Richard
Miles follows civilization chronologically with clearly-marked sections, colour
photographs, and black-and-white maps – with wit, humour, and engaging facts.
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse
(2009).
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