An Introduction to the Ancient World

Integrating the results of scholarly work from the past decade, the authors of An Introduction to the Ancient World, Lukas de Blois and R.J. van der Spek, have fully-updated and revised all sixteen chapters of this best-selling introductory textbook. Covering the history and culture of the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome within the framework of a short narrative history of events, this book offers an easily readable, integrated overview for students of history, classics, archaeology and philosophy, whether at college, at undergraduate level or among the wider reading public.

This revised second edition offers a new section on early Christianity and more specific information on the religions, economies, and societies of the ancient Near East. There is extended coverage of Greek, Macedonian and Near Eastern history of the fourth to second centuries BC and the history of the Late Roman Republic. The consequences of Julius Caesar’s violent death are covered in more detail, as are the history and society of Imperial Rome.

This new edition is:

• comprehensive: covers 3,000 years of ancient history and provides the basis for a typical one-semester course

• lavishly illustrated: contains maps, line drawings and plates to support and supplement the text, with updated captions

• clearly and concisely written: two established and respected university teachers with thirty years' experience in the subject areas

• well-organized: traces the broad outline of political history but also concentrates on particular topics

• user-friendly: includes chapter menus, an extensive and expanded bibliography organized by subject area and three appendices, an improved introduction and the addition of an epilogue.

Lukas de Blois is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and specialises in Roman and Greek history and ancient historiography. Robartus van der Spek is Professor of Ancient History at the Free University of Amsterdam, and specialises in the history of the ancient Near East.