What do you think?
Rate this book
Annual Editions: World History, Volume I
This informative anthology provides convenient, inexpensive access to a wide range of current, carefully selected articles from some of the most respected magazines, newspapers, and journals published today. Within the pages of this volume are interesting well-illustrated articles by historians, educators, researchers, and writers, providing an effective and useful perspective on world history from prehistory to 1500. The title is supported by our student website, Dushkin Online. (
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 9, 2004
4 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 18, 2018
I learnt so much from this collection of articles.
My favourite units are Unit 4, The Later Civilisations, which includes Roman gladiator sports, Unit 5 on The Great Religions, and Unit 6 The Era of Global Expansion.
Here are some excerpts:
Vox Populi – Heather Pringle
"Collectively, they left behind an astonishing trove of pop culture – advertisements, gambling forms, official proclamations, birth announcements, magical spells, declarations of love, dedications to gods, obituaries, playbills, complaints, and epigrams."
“Oh, wall, I am surprised that you have not collapsed and fallen, seeing that you support the loathsome scribblings of so many writers.”
“Many of the infatuated sound remarkably like their counterparts today.
“Girl, you’re beautiful! I’ve been sent to you by one who is yours,” reads an inscription found in a Pompeian bedroom."
“Vibius Restitutus slept here alone, longing for his Urbana,” wrote a traveller in a Roman inn.
Some capture impatience. “Driver, if you could only feel the fires of love, you would hurry more to enjoy the pleasures of Venus. I love a young charmer, please spur on the horses, let’s get on.”
It's also funny how ancient crowds seem to behave like us, still. (Or more like, how we behave like them)
“At Rome’s Colosseum, each spectator held a tessera, a ticker corresponding to a number inscribed on one of the building’s 80 arcades.”
“As spectators waited for the bloody combat matches to begin, they snacked on breads or cakes purchased from stalls outside the arena. Local chefs baked breads especially for the games, employing moulds bearing designs of duelling gladiators and the name of the baker.”
Sudden Death - Franz Lidz
This article is about the Roman gladiator sport. Brutal, but popular in its time. Interesting to me as people still seem to behave the same, before big arena games.
“…ferocious predators faced off in bizarre combinations: bears against lions, lions against leopards, leopards against crocodiles.”
“…included the slaughter of 20 elephants, 600 lions, 410 leopards, numerous apes and Rome’s first rhinoceros. The Romans were so efficient at keeping their arenas stocked that entire animal populations were wiped out: Elephants disappeared from Libya, lions from Mesopotamia, and hippos from Nubia.”
“A piece of ancient graffito was found at the gladiatorial barracks in Rome that read SO-AND-SO MAKES THE GIRLS PANT.” Gladiator sweat was considered such an aphrodisiac that it was used in the facial creams of Roman women, and top gladiators were folk heroes with nicknames, fan clubs and adoring groupies. “We think they were sex symbols,” says Jones.
Universal Rights and Cultural Relativism: Hinduism and Islam deconstructed - Catherine E. Polisi
This article was rather alarming yet enlightening. The author argues that religion has been interpreted in a way that subjugates women, when in fact, women were never meant to be excluded.
“Although human rights abuses toward women often are justified on the grounds of Hindu and Muslim religious teachings and scriptures, the original, authoritative scriptures of both religions actually hold women in equal regard to them. (Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Muslim passages from Qur’an)”
“when these religions began in 3000 BC and 610 AD respectively, women were considered an essential part of the community, family unit, and religion. The tremendous gender bias that exists today in Islamic and Hindu cultures reflects not the original interpretations of the scriptures, but rather subsequent male interpretations of the texts.”
Other articles that were extremely interesting:
-First Churches of the Jesus Cult, Andrew Lawler
-Women in Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries (Find out more about how the roles Mary and other early Christian women played, and how their leadership roles were suppressed for centuries...)
-The Explorer Marco Polo, Paul Lunde
-1492, The Prequel, Nicholas D. Kristof (About Zheng He and why expeditions stopped, when China's navy was the most impressive for its time, and also the interesting 'what-if', that China conquered most of the land, instead of the Western colonial powers.)
Read the journal for more!
My favourite units are Unit 4, The Later Civilisations, which includes Roman gladiator sports, Unit 5 on The Great Religions, and Unit 6 The Era of Global Expansion.
Here are some excerpts:
Vox Populi – Heather Pringle
"Collectively, they left behind an astonishing trove of pop culture – advertisements, gambling forms, official proclamations, birth announcements, magical spells, declarations of love, dedications to gods, obituaries, playbills, complaints, and epigrams."
“Oh, wall, I am surprised that you have not collapsed and fallen, seeing that you support the loathsome scribblings of so many writers.”
“Many of the infatuated sound remarkably like their counterparts today.
“Girl, you’re beautiful! I’ve been sent to you by one who is yours,” reads an inscription found in a Pompeian bedroom."
“Vibius Restitutus slept here alone, longing for his Urbana,” wrote a traveller in a Roman inn.
Some capture impatience. “Driver, if you could only feel the fires of love, you would hurry more to enjoy the pleasures of Venus. I love a young charmer, please spur on the horses, let’s get on.”
It's also funny how ancient crowds seem to behave like us, still. (Or more like, how we behave like them)
“At Rome’s Colosseum, each spectator held a tessera, a ticker corresponding to a number inscribed on one of the building’s 80 arcades.”
“As spectators waited for the bloody combat matches to begin, they snacked on breads or cakes purchased from stalls outside the arena. Local chefs baked breads especially for the games, employing moulds bearing designs of duelling gladiators and the name of the baker.”
Sudden Death - Franz Lidz
This article is about the Roman gladiator sport. Brutal, but popular in its time. Interesting to me as people still seem to behave the same, before big arena games.
“…ferocious predators faced off in bizarre combinations: bears against lions, lions against leopards, leopards against crocodiles.”
“…included the slaughter of 20 elephants, 600 lions, 410 leopards, numerous apes and Rome’s first rhinoceros. The Romans were so efficient at keeping their arenas stocked that entire animal populations were wiped out: Elephants disappeared from Libya, lions from Mesopotamia, and hippos from Nubia.”
“A piece of ancient graffito was found at the gladiatorial barracks in Rome that read SO-AND-SO MAKES THE GIRLS PANT.” Gladiator sweat was considered such an aphrodisiac that it was used in the facial creams of Roman women, and top gladiators were folk heroes with nicknames, fan clubs and adoring groupies. “We think they were sex symbols,” says Jones.
Universal Rights and Cultural Relativism: Hinduism and Islam deconstructed - Catherine E. Polisi
This article was rather alarming yet enlightening. The author argues that religion has been interpreted in a way that subjugates women, when in fact, women were never meant to be excluded.
“Although human rights abuses toward women often are justified on the grounds of Hindu and Muslim religious teachings and scriptures, the original, authoritative scriptures of both religions actually hold women in equal regard to them. (Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Muslim passages from Qur’an)”
“when these religions began in 3000 BC and 610 AD respectively, women were considered an essential part of the community, family unit, and religion. The tremendous gender bias that exists today in Islamic and Hindu cultures reflects not the original interpretations of the scriptures, but rather subsequent male interpretations of the texts.”
Other articles that were extremely interesting:
-First Churches of the Jesus Cult, Andrew Lawler
-Women in Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries (Find out more about how the roles Mary and other early Christian women played, and how their leadership roles were suppressed for centuries...)
-The Explorer Marco Polo, Paul Lunde
-1492, The Prequel, Nicholas D. Kristof (About Zheng He and why expeditions stopped, when China's navy was the most impressive for its time, and also the interesting 'what-if', that China conquered most of the land, instead of the Western colonial powers.)
Read the journal for more!
Displaying 1 of 1 review