Ancient Civilizations

The study of ancient civilizations and people raises some profound questions. Who are humans? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

As you explore these civilizations, see if you can make sense of this Sphinxlike statement from author William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." It may help you see where you are going.

Knowledge of history is empowering. An event is but the furthest ripple of an ever-expanding wave that may have started eddying outward hundreds of years ago. One who "sees" history is able to harness the power of that wave's entire journey.

The United States and our world today represents the latest chapter in the book that is history. This course presents many of the chapters that led up to our chapter. Here is much of the back-story that helps us all understand our historic inheritance and the choices we may make.

How Do We Know?

1. Archaeologists and Their Artifacts
2. Anthropologists and Their People
3. Historians and Their Time
4. Geographers and Their Space

Prehistoric Times

1. "I Love Lucy"
2. Food, Clothing and Shelter
3. A Page Right Out of History
4. First Technologies: Fire and Tools

Ancient Egypt

1. Life along the Nile
2. Egyptian Social Structure
3. Dynasties
4. Mummies
5. Pyramids
6. Women of Ancient Egypt

The Early Middle East

1. Life in Sumer
2. Babylonia
3. Hammurabi's Code: An Eye for an Eye
4. Assyrians: Cavalry and Conquests
5. Persian Empire
6. Phoenicians: Sailing Away
7. Hebrews and the Land of Milk and Honey
8. Birth of Christianity
9. Muhammad and the Faith of Islam

Ancient Greece

1. Rise of City-States: Athens and Sparta
2. Democracy Is Born
3. Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes
4. Greek Literature
5. Art and Architecture
6. Thinkers
7. Alexander the Great
8. The Olympic Games

Ancient Rome

1. The Roman Republic
2. Julius Caesar
3. The Pax Romana
4. Life of the People
5. Gladiators, Chariots, and the Roman Games
6. The Fall of the Roman Empire

Africa

1. Kingdom of Ghana
2. Mali: A Cultural Center
3. Benin and Its Royal Court
4. Great Zimbabwe
5. Life on the Desert

South Asia: India and Beyond

1. Early Civilization in the Indus Valley
2. The Caste System
3. The Rise of Hinduism
4. The Birth and Spread of Buddhism
5. The Gupta Period of India

China

1. The Middle Kingdom
2. Shang Dynasty — China's First Recorded History
3. Han Dynasty — Cultural Heights
4. Tang Dynasty — The Golden Age
5. Taoism and Confucianism — Ancient Philosophies

Japan: An Island Nation

1. Japanese Religion and Spirituality
2. Early History and Culture
3. Feudal Japan: The Age of the Warrior
4. The Martial Arts
5. Life During the Edo Period

Central and South American Empires

1. Blood of Kings: The World of the Maya
2. Deciphering Maya Glyphs
3. The Inca Empire: Children of the Sun
4. The Aztec World
5. Clash of Cultures: Two Worlds Collide

Source: http://www.ushistory.org/civ/

The History Guide's Lectures on Ancient and Medieval European History

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture 1: What is Civilization?

Lecture 2: Ancient Western Asia and the Civilization of Mesopotamia

Lecture 3: Egyptian Civilization

Lecture 4: The Akkadians, Egyptians and the Hebrews

Lecture 5: Homer and the Greek Renaissance, 900-600BC

Lecture 6: The Athenian Origins of Direct Democracy

Lecture 7: Classical Greece, 500-323BC

Lecture 8: Greek Thought: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Lecture 9: From Polis to Cosmopolis: Hellenization and Alexander the Great, 323-30BC

Lecture 10: Early Roman Civilization, 753-509BC

Lecture 11: Republican Rome, 509-31BC

Lecture 12: Augustus Caesar and the Pax Romana

Lecture 13: A Brief Social History of the Roman Empire

Lecture 14: The Decline and Fall of Rome

Lecture 15: Christianity as a Cultural Revolution

Lecture 16: The Church Fathers: Jerome and Augustine

Lecture 17: Byzantine Civilization

Lecture 18: Islamic Civilization

Lecture 19: Early Medieval Monasticism

Lecture 20: Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance

Lecture 21: Feudalism and the Feudal Relationship

Lecture 22: European Agrarian Society: Manorialism

Lecture 23: Medieval Society: The Three Orders

Lecture 24: The Medieval World View

Lecture 25: The Holy Crusades

Lecture 26: The 12th Century Renaissance

Lecture 27: Heretics, Heresies and the Church

Lecture 28: Aquinas and Dante

Lecture 29: Satan Triumphant: The Black Death

Lecture 30: In the Wake of the Black Death

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture 1: Renaissance Portraits

Lecture 2: The Age of Discovery

Lecture 3: The Protestant Reformation: Luther and Calvin

Lecture 4: The Impact of Luther and the Radical Reformation

Lecture 5: The Catholic Reformation

Lecture 6: Europe in the Age of Religious Wars, 1560-1715

Lecture 7: The English Civil War

Lecture 8: Political Theory, 1660-1715

Lecture 9: France in the 17th Century

Lecture 10: The Scientific Revolution, 1543-1600

Lecture 11: The Scientific Revolution, 1600-1642

Lecture 12: The Scientific Revolution, 1642-1730

Lecture 13: The New Intellectual Order: Man, Nature and Society

Lecture 14: A Century of Genius: Art, Philosophy and Drama

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture 1: Modern European Intellectual History: An Introduction

Lecture 2: The Medieval World View (1)

Lecture 3: The Medieval World View (2)

Lecture 4: The Medieval Synthesis and the Renaissance Discovery of Man

Lecture 5: The Medieval Synthesis Under Attack: Savonarola and the Protestant Reformation

Lecture 6: The Medieval Synthesis and the Secularization of Human Knowledge: The Scientific Revolution, 1543-1642 (1)

Lecture 7: The Medieval Synthesis and the Secularization of Human Knowledge: The Scientific Revolution, 1642-1730 (2)

Lecture 8: The New Intellectual Order: Man, Nature and Society

Lecture 9: Écrasez l'infâme!: The Triumph of Science and the Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophe

Lecture 10: The Vision of Human Progress: Vico, Gibbon and Condorcet

Lecture 11: The Origins of the French Revolution

Lecture 12: The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789-1792

Lecture 13: The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792-1794

Lecture 14: The Language of Politics: England and the French Revolution

Lecture 15: Europe and the Superior Being: Napoleon

Lecture 16: The Romantic Critique of the Enlightenment

Lecture 17: The Origins of the Industrial Revolution in England

Lecture 18: The Social Consequences of the Industrial Revolution -- currently editing

Lecture 19: The French Revolution and the Socialist Tradition: Early French Communists (1)

Lecture 20: The French Revolution and the Socialist Tradition: English Democratic Socialists (2)

Lecture 21: The Utopian Socialists: Charles Fourier (1)

Lecture 22: The Utopian Socialists: Robert Owen and Saint-Simon (2)

Lecture 23: The Age of Ideologies: General Introduction (1)

Lecture 24: The Age of Ideologies: Reflections on Karl Marx (2)

Lecture 25: The Age of Ideologies: The World of Auguste Comte (3)

Lecture 26: The Age of Ideologies: Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Theory (4) -- currently editing

Lecture 27: The Revolt Against the Western Intellectual Tradition: Nietzsche and the Birth of Modernism

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture 1: Random Thoughts on the Intellectual History of Modern Europe

Lecture 2: Nietzsche, Freud and the Thrust Toward Modernism (1)

Lecture 3: Nietzsche, Freud and the Thrust Toward Modernism (2)

Lecture 4: The Great War and Modern Memory -- currently editing

Lecture 5: The Russian Revolution: February - October 1917 (1)

Lecture 6: The Russian Revolution: Red October and the Bolshevik Coup (2)

Lecture 7: The Aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution

Lecture 8: The Age of Anxiety: Europe in the 1920s (1)

Lecture 9: The Age of Anxiety: Europe in the 1920s (2)

Lecture 10: The Age of Totalitarianism: Stalin and Hitler

Lecture 11: Hitler and World War Two

Lecture 12: The Existentialist Frame of Mind

Lecture 13: George Orwell and "The Last Man in Europe"

Lecture 14: The Origins of the Cold War

Lecture 15: 1968: The Year of the Barricades

Lecture 16: 1989: The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Source: http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/ancient.html