Ancient History

by George Rawlinson

Ancient History is a result of the early, exciting days of archaeological exploration. Even today, George Rawlinson's text remains the only brief introduction to the entire panorama of the ancient world. It gives equal weight to each of the civilizations of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean rather than subordinating them to the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.

Born in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, on November 23, 1812, George Rawlinson began his long career as an ancient historian with an appointment at Exeter College in 1840. From 1861 to 1889, he held the distinguished Camden Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford. He died in 1902, his most lasting contribution to society being his translation of Herodotus.

Genres: History

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Canon George Rawlinson (23 November 1812 – 7 October 1902) was a 19th century English scholar, historian, and Christian theologian. He was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, and was the younger brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson.

Reviews

[Genni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barnes and Noble took this public domain work and published it in 1993. It traveled through many hands and ended up at a used book store that I frequent where I picked it up on a whim, and am glad I did regardless of the fact that this was originally published in the 1860s.

Rawlinson was a British scholar and professor at Oxford for over twenty years and it shows. The amount of detail on each of these little countries was fantastic for a book aiming to cover such a large period. He did not keep his focus on western countries only, providing a broader perspective for the development of history.

One aspect that might be a little odd for modern readers was the fact that the book contains no maps. I’m assuming it would have been too expensive to do so when it was originally published?? So Rawlinson compensated for this with huge descriptions of the geography of each place before he began the discussion of its people. I surprisingly liked this. I often feel a little overwhelmed when looking at maps, but reading the descriptions allowed me to draw my own mental maps, much as we do when reading fiction, and it was personally very effective.

As for the writing in general, it was rather uneven. As knowledgeable as he was, you can tell that he was far more comfortable when writing about the Greeks and Romans, and it became engaging. Other sections were covered in as much detail, but without the intimate familiarity he adopted with western countries.

All in all, although this is incredibly old, and out of date in some ways, I found it to still be a very valuable read.

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://books.google.se/books?id=R_81...

The present volume of "Universal History," from the pen of Professor Rawlinson, embraces a period extending from the Creation of the World to the Destruction of the Roman Empire in the West by the Barbarians, A.D. 476. It tells the history of the various Nations and States of the earth during that time (and to a somewhat later date in the case of Persia), in a series of parallel narratives, giving especial prominence to the leading events which presided over the formation and development of those Great Empires into which mankind was mainly grouped.

The focus is on civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea and there are but brief mentions of China and India, and obviously nothing about South America. It's so short and brief that it has aged fairly well, not a lot of things mentioned that really could be wrong. It absolutely does a good job of covering what it does cover, even if it's far from "universal."

[Will Seith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book to be unnecessarily dry. Instead of using maps or illustrations, of which this book has none, each time a new era is talked about the first chapter states all the boundaries of the countries discussed also rarely talked about individuals unless it was necessary to the history discussed. Not saying it's bad just totally not what I was looking for

[sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent wide sweeping approach to the rise and fall of classical civilization, though I felt that the section on the greeks was lacking somewhat. Reccomended if one wants a good introduction to the subject.

[Larry Van Bibber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a good book as a reference book in a college library for history students but too much detail particularly with facilities and cities.
I have read several other books about the leaders and the major events that were much more interesting