Throughout history change has been constant, one society has transitioned to another. One society grew their power and spread their influence. After many years their power waned and another society grew. This cycle has been happening since the dawn of recorded history. It may have been happening since before recorded history. Those societies which mastered the principles that support them dominated. Those that failed to master them, or lost their mastery, suffered and faded into history. The majority of innovation has occurred in the last 200 years. As a result, the world economy has exploded. The human condition has been enhanced dramatically. People do not have to draw water from wells. Indoor plumbing allows us to enjoy the comfort of our home. Our homes are climate controlled. People are able to communicate with others all over the world. We can even communicate with people who speak languages we've never learned. This allows us to conduct business all over the world. What are the principles that give societies this power? How do they affect us today? Where do we focus our efforts to ensure we are all able to enjoy the benefits of a healthy economy? Find many of the answers between the covers of this book.

Likely to become a standard work for students of the ancient Near East, and for those interested in the high cultures of the region, this account is also a highly accessible repository of information valuable to archaeologists, anthropologists, etc

A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.

World Religions Religious Foundations of Western Civilization introduces students to the major Western world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—their beliefs, key concepts, history, as well as the fundamental role they have played, and continue to play, in Western culture. Contributors include: Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, Bruce D. Chilton, Th. Emil Homerin, Jon D. Levenson, William Scott Green, Seymour Feldman, Elliot R. Wolfson, James A. Brundage, Olivia Remie Constable, and Amila Buturovic. "This book provides a superb source of information for scientists and scholars from all disciplines who are trying to understand religion in the context of human cultural evolution." David Sloan Wilson, Professor, Departments of Biology and Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York This is the right book at the right time. Globalization, religious revivalism, and international politics have made it more important than ever to appreciate the significant contributions of the Children of Abraham to the formation and development of Western civilization. John L. Esposito, University Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Muslm-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology, and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. General Interest/Other Religions/Comparative Religion

Ancient Egypt is a beautifully illustrated, easy-to-read book covering the formative era of the Egyptian civilization: the age before the pyramids. Douglas Brewer shows why an awareness of the earliest phase of Egyptian history is crucial to understanding of later Egyptian culture. Beginning with a quick review of the fields of Egyptology and archaeology, Ancient Egypt takes the reader on a compelling survey of Egypt's prehistoric past. The books tours the Nile Valley to explore its impact on all aspects of life, from day-to-day living to regional politics, and introduces the reader to the Nile Valley's earliest inhabitants and the very first "Egyptians".

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.

A fun way to learn about China in a visual, informative comic-style history. Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more. For all ages, Foundations of Chinese Civilization covers China's early history in comic form, introducing philosophies like Confucianism and Daoism, the story of the Silk Road, famous emperors like Han Wudi, and the process of China's unification. Includes a handy timeline. This is volume one of the Understanding China Through Comics series. Jing Liu is a Beijing native now living in Davis, California. A successful designer and entrepreneur who helped brands tell their stories, Jing currently uses his artistry to tell the story of China.

How would you go about rebuilding a technological society from scratch? If our technological society collapsed tomorrow what would be the one book you would want to press into the hands of the postapocalyptic survivors? What crucial knowledge would they need to survive in the immediate aftermath and to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible? Human knowledge is collective, distributed across the population. It has built on itself for centuries, becoming vast and increasingly specialized. Most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us, happily utilizing the latest—or even the most basic—technology without having the slightest idea of why it works or how it came to be. If you had to go back to absolute basics, like some sort of postcataclysmic Robinson Crusoe, would you know how to re-create an internal combustion engine, put together a microscope, get metals out of rock, or even how to produce food for yourself? Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. Every piece of technology rests on an enormous support network of other technologies, all interlinked and mutually dependent. You can’t hope to build a radio, for example, without understanding how to acquire the raw materials it requires, as well as generate the electricity needed to run it. But Dartnell doesn’t just provide specific information for starting over; he also reveals the greatest invention of them all—the phenomenal knowledge-generating machine that is the scientific method itself. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world.