Civilization

"A treasure trove of myths and terror… Atmospheric as hell… Immersive."-The Times Based on the podcast with over one hundred million downloads, Fall of Civilizations brilliantly explores how a range of ancient societies rose to power and sophistication, and how they tipped over into collapse...

#1 New York Times Bestseller New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama and Bill Gates Official U.S. edition From renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and...

India provides a dazzling new history of the Indian subcontinent and its diverse peoples in global context—from antiquity to today.

Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time. What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity.

A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization. The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced...

A majestic tale of discovery thatchanged many long-held views about the world In 1519 Magellan and his fleet of five ships set sail from Seville, Spain, to discover a water route to the fabled Spice Islands in Indonesia, where the most sought-after commodities -- cloves, pepper, and nutmeg --...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history. Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. “Strikingly original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the zeitgeist perfectly...

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages....

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world...

"An all-encompassing treatise on modern civilization, offering bold revisions to canonical understandings in sociology, anthropology, archaeology and political philosophy that led to where we are today."—The New York Times A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our...

A stunning portrait of the magnificent splendor of ancient Persia and its enduring legacies for today's Iran “A brilliant feat of resurrection.”―Tom Holland, author of Dominion The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 100 BOOK OF THE CENTURY * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIME ALL-TIME 100 NONFICTION BOOK Updated with FOUR NEW MAJOR CHAPTERS illuminating the new developments in cancer detection, prevention, treatment, and...

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right....

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece....

Daughter. Duhitár-. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Armenian and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear echoes of one of history’s most unlikely journeys.

From the world-leading expert on the Maya, a monumental history of a flourishing civilization across three millennia.

“This is history on a grand scale, with a sweep and ambition that is rare… A proper historical epic of dazzling range and achievement.” —William Dalrymple, The Guardian The epic history of the crossroads of the world—the meeting place of East and West and the birthplace of civilization...

A New York Times Notable Book A Financial Times Best Book of the Year "A learned, formidable and vivid story… Readers around the world will study and ponder this monumental work of history, agreeing and arguing with it, all the while affirming its generational importance, for decades to...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the world’s most innovative thinkers explores what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment. “Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the...

Already a major international bestseller, Zeinab Badawi’s sweeping and much-needed survey of African history traces the continent’s extraordinary legacy from prehistory to the present from the African perspective. “Equal parts gripping and galvanizing. . . . Researched across more than 30...

A New York Times–bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time War can settle disputes, topple tyrants, and bend the trajectory of...

From one of the most beloved authors of our time—more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone—a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home. “Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.” Bill Bryson and...

In The Cultural Tutor’s Grand Tour, the ephemera of the everyday opens up to reveal a world of high art and low cunning - where a love affair can trigger a World War, a lamp-post can birth a cathedral, and a cup of coffee can take you on a journey of a thousand years. In the 18th Century, young English gentlemen would embark on Grand Tours - educational journeys to foreign climes, absorbing the sights, sounds and stories that defined them. But we get it - you’re busy. These days, all you need to see the world is a pair of headphones.

The Four Heavens brings to life the cultural and visual splendor of the ancient Maya, drawing on the oldest indigenous texts of the Americas and the latest archaeological discoveries to present an entirely new history of this spectacular civilization. Renowned historian and archaeologist David Stuart, who has made groundbreaking contributions to the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics, shows how there was no single rise and fall of the Maya but a series of births and collapses over a breathtaking span of nearly three millennia.

Every drink tells a story. Some of them changed the world. Beer built the first cities. Tea triggered two wars and reshaped an empire. Rum was inseparable from the slave trade—and from the American Revolution. Champagne became humanity's universal signal that a moment deserves to be remembered. And Coca-Cola? It became the most recognized commercial brand in history, embraced and resisted by nations with the intensity reserved for things that truly matter. 50 Drinks That Changed the World takes you inside the stories behind civilization's most consequential beverages—from the ancient ...

La épica historia de uno de los imperios más ricos y poderosos de la Antigüedad.

History tends to present the time around the birth of Jesus as quiet, sacred, and solemn. Reality was… considerably messier. The world between 10 BC and AD 50 was loud, crowded, political, dangerous, inventive, deeply religious, and sometimes unbelievably strange. Roman emperors ruled with theatrical ego. Street vendors sold questionable food. Doctors prescribed treatments that would horrify modern medicine. Religious movements collided, clashed, and spread through dusty roads and bustling ports. Meanwhile, ordinary people were navigating life in cities filled with sewage systems, ...