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Making civilizations : the world before 600 /

From the History of the World series, Making Civilizations traces the origins of large-scale organized human societies. Led by archaeologist Hans-Joachim Gehrke, a distinguished group of scholars lays out latest findings about Neanderthals, the Agrarian Revolution, the founding of imperial China, th...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Gehrke, Hans-Joachim (Editor)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [2020]
Series:History of the world (Belknap Press)
Subjects:
Civilization, Ancient.
World history.
Classical antiquities.
Mediterranean Region > Antiquities.
Middle East > Antiquities.
China > Antiquities.
South Asia > Antiquities.
Table of Contents:
  • Prehistory and ancient history / Hermann Parzinger
  • Introduction
  • The emergence of modern humans
  • Sedentism, a productive economy, and group identity
  • Innovations, upheavals, and complex societies
  • Areas beyond advanced civilizations
  • On time axes and axial ages
  • Early civilizations of the ancient Near East: Egypt and Western Asia / Karen Radner
  • Introduction
  • Early states
  • Writing everywhere: bureaucrats, men of letters, and trading companies
  • Chariots and glass: new toys for royal brethren
  • A new beginning: petty states and great empires
  • The world of classical antiquity / Hans-Joachim Gehrke
  • Introduction
  • On the way to a new world: the Mediterranean and its environs
  • Persians and Greeks: the world divided
  • The Roman Republic
  • The Hellenistic world
  • The zenith and decline of the Roman Republic
  • The Roman Empire and global unity
  • Ancient China / Mark Edward Lewis
  • Introduction
  • Geographic background
  • The archaic state: Shang and Zhou
  • The warring states transition
  • The first empires: Qin and Han
  • Early cities
  • The great families: Wei and Jin
  • The military dynasties: Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, and Northern Wei
  • The institutional religions: Daoism and Buddhism
  • Medieval cities
  • Early Imperial China and the outer world
  • Reunification and the fall of the Sui dynasty
  • South Asia and Southeast Asia / Axel Michaels
  • Introduction
  • Harappan civilization
  • The arrival of the Indo-Aryans
  • Vedic culture
  • State structures and ascetic movements
  • Between the great empires: transregional connections
  • The classical age and the formation of Hinduism
  • India's influence in East and Southeast Asia.