Ancient Worlds

Across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta, awe-inspiring, monstrous ruins are scattered across the landscape - vast palaces, temples, fortresses, shattered statues of ancient gods, carvings praising the eternal power of long-forgotten dynasties. These ruins - the remainder of thousands of years of human civilization - are both inspirational in their grandeur, and terrible in that their once teeming centres of population were all ultimately destroyed and abandoned. In this major book, Richard Miles recreates these extraordinary cities, ranging from the Euphrates to the Roman Empire, to understand the roots of human civilization. His challenge is to make us understand that the cities which define culture, religion and economic success and which are humanity's greatest invention, have always had a cruel edge to them, building systems that have provided both amazing opportunities and back-breaking hardship. This exhilarating book is both a pleasure to read and a challenge to us all to think about our past - and about the present.

ISBN 0241951364   Pages 400 ISBN13 9780241951361 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 328 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd   Published in London Imprint Penguin Books Ltd   Height (mm) 198 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 129 Publication date 01 Sep 2011   Spine width (mm) 24 DEWEY 930   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

Epic and compelling Daily Mail Engaging ... full of interesting things about the radical social experiment of the city-state, and the new ways of living it permitted Independent An epic, spanning five millennia and half the globe Daily Telegraph Ancient Worlds really does put flesh on the bones of history and Richard Miles brings long lost cities to life Observer

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