With 100 carefully chosen words, each explained in just 100 words, this book provides a quick and fun insight into the characters, events and inventions of the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

How do you sum up the ancient world in just 100 words? This book takes on the challenge! With 100 carefully chosen words, each explained in just 100 words, this book provides a quick and fun insight into the characters, events and inventions of the ancient world. With entries on the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Minoans, the Greeks,and the Romans, this book is an easy way to gain a rounded knowledge of the subject area, while also sparking discussion and provoking thought from readers, young and old. What were pyramids used for? How did the Romans fight battles? Which Greek inventions are still used today? Each word is brought to life with engaging illustrations and absorbing text, sure to inspire the imagination of budding historians.

Birds played an important role in the ancient world: as indicators of time, weather, and seasons; as a resource for hunting, medicine, and farming; as pets and entertainment; as omens and messengers of the gods. Jeremy Mynott explores the similarities and surprising differences between ancient perceptions of the natural world and our own.

Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what') to the more fanciful ('fopdoodle'), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising. In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering).

The brief word-histories in this book are meant to provide background on some words that everyone learns when they study Latin, as well as some rarer terms that have interesting stories to tell about Roman culture. This book lists a new word or phrase that came into American English every year from 1975 to 1998, with a selection of early additions from 1497 to 1750, and discusses the history behind the adoption of each. Teachers and students of Latin can benefit from the slightly more formal, but still anecdotal, approach taken here to some key words in the Latin lexicon.

that hold a particular fascination for modern readers, alongside a broader, contextual panorama of the global cultures that shaped the ancient world. The book has over 1,000 colour and black-and-white illustrations." --Book Jacket.

A rich exploration of the importance of books and libraries in the ancient world that highlights how humanity’s obsession with the printed word has echoed throughout the ages • “Accessible and entertaining.” —The Wall Street Journal Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of earth to bring them back. When Mark Antony wanted to impress Cleopatra, he knew that gold and priceless jewels would mean nothing to her. So, what did her give her? Books for her library—two hundred thousand, in fact. The long and eventful history of the written word shows that books have always been and will always be a precious—and precarious—vehicle for civilization. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Award-winning author Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world from Greece’s itinerant bards to Rome’s multimillionaire philosophers, from opportunistic forgers to cruel teachers, erudite librarians to defiant women, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today. Crucially, Vallejo also draws connections to our own time, from the library in war-torn Sarajevo to Oxford’s underground labyrinth, underscoring how words have persisted as our most valuable creations. Through nimble interpretations of the classics, playful and moving anecdotes about her own encounters with the written word, and fascinating stories from history, Vallejo weaves a marvelous tapestry of Western culture’s foundations and identifies the humanist values that helped make us who we are today. At its heart a spirited love letter to language itself, Papyrus takes readers on a journey across the centuries to discover how a simple reed grown along the banks of the Nile would give birth to a rich and cherished culture.

A history of the ancient world, from 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D.

Take a trip through the defining moments of our global story and see the thinkers, leaders, ideas, and inventions that have shaped the world. Presented in a beautiful slipcase, World History is an essential guide for anyone who loves history or wants to broaden their knowledge. This accessible book covers over 350 of the world's most important turning points, from our earliest human ancestors of prehistory to political events of the modern world. Follow detailed maps showing the continuous movement of humans across the Earth, and examine fascinating paintings illustrating the events and individuals that took them there. Beautiful photography throughout the book will carry you back in time to see the people and places of the stories - along with stunning artifacts from every historical period. From magnificent buildings like the Colosseum to magnificent words like "I have a dream!", this guide brings history's most significant events to life for every reader to discover and enjoy.