When the World Was Black: The Untold History of the World’s First Civilizations (Volume Two of The Science of Self series) has been published in TWO parts. Why two? Because there are far too many stories that remain untold. We had over 200,000 years of Black history to tell – from the southern tip of Chile to the northernmost isles of Europe – and you can’t do that justice in a 300-page book. So there are two parts, each consisting of 360 pages of groundbreaking history, digging deep into the story of all the world’s original people. Part One covers the Black origins of all the world’s oldest cultures and societies, spanning more than 200,000 years of human history. Part Two tells the stories of the Black men and women who introduced urban civilization to the world over the last 20,000 years, up to the time of European contact. Each part has over 100 helpful maps, graphs, and photos, an 8-page full-color insert in the center, and over 300 footnotes and references for further research. “In this book, you’ll learn about the history of Black people. I don’t mean the history you learned in school, which most likely began with slavery and ended with the Civil Rights Movement. I’m talking about Black history BEFORE that. Long before that. In this book, we’ll cover over 200,000 years of Black history. For many of us, that sounds strange. We can’t even imagine what the Black past was like before the slave trade, much less imagine that such a history goes back 200,000 years or more.” “Part Two covers history from 20,000 years ago to the point of European contact. This is the time that prehistoric cultures grew into ancient urban civilizations, a transition known to historians as the “Neolithic Revolution.”

Urban history starts in ancient Mesopotamia. In this volume Marc Van De Mieroop examines the evolution of the very earliest cities which, for millennia, inspired the rest of the ancient world. The city determined every aspect of Mesopotamian civilization, and the political and social structure, economy, literature, and arts of Mesopotamian culture cannot be understood without acknowledging their urban background. - ;Urban history starts in ancient Mesopotamia: the earliest known cities developed there as the result of long indigenous processes, and, for millennia, the city determined every aspect of Mesopotamian civilization. Marc Van De Mieroop examines urban life in the historical period, investigating urban topography, the role of cities as centres of culture, their political and social structures, economy, literature, and the arts. He draws on material from the entirety of Mesopotamian history, from c. 3000 to 300 BC, and from both Babylonia and Assyria, arguing that the Mesopotamian city can be regarded as a prototype that inspired the rest of the ancient world and shared characteristics with the European cities of antiquity. -