The Joy of Ancient History

by Bart D. Ehrman, Bob Brier, Craig G. Benjamin

For years, The Great Courses has taken lifelong learners on stirring explorations of our ancient roots; ones that bring you face to face with what history means, and how we use it to understand both the past and the present. So where's the best place to start? Right here with this eclectic and insightful collection of 36 lectures curated from our most popular ancient history courses.

Guided by some of our most highly rated and award-winning professors - including archaeologists, classicists, military historians, and religion scholars - you'll hopscotch around the world and across time to experience the fascinating variety of what ancient history has to offer.

Because the subject itself spans roughly five millennia, this "best of" collection does all the legwork for you, selecting captivating lectures that offer both introductions to and deep dives into some of the most prominent ancient civilizations, including the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. This collection also takes you far afield into the dramatic stories of cultures in Europe, the Middle East, South America, India, China, and other parts of the world.

Listening to some of our brightest academic minds talk about the ancient world, you'll truly understand why we're still captivated by people and events from thousands of years ago, and why they still have much to tell us about where we are. And where we're headed.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Archaeology, Science, Egypt

Audible Audio

First published May 30, 2014

About the author

Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable set of lectures to listen to. Though they were each drawn from different lecture series (though there may have been one or two from the same), I was impressed by how they were arranged in such a complementary way: for the first 16 or so lectures each one built off of a key issue raised in the previous lecture. This pattern continued, but it was less pronounced in later lectures. There were several that I've heard before, since I've been listening primarily to lectures on ancient history recently, but a bit of review is not a bad thing. My one complaint is that it doesn't come with a course guide. I would like to follow up on some of these lectures, and maybe listen to the whole series they came from, but I found it very hard to recall the short intro at the start of each lecture, especially because I never knew if a lecture would be interesting until I was well into it. And the fact that I listen to it in my car means I couldn't really take down notes. It feels like too much effort at the moment (especially since I already have my next series checked out), but if I run out of ideas I'll come back to this one and see if I can find any of the full series for the more interesting topics.

[Doug Trani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This lecture series is a broad collection of lectures from a wide variety of The Great Courses offerings that treat an expansive range of topics covering a vast array of ancient civilizations. The civilizations include Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, and Amazonian...to name a few. And not necessarily in that order. Topics range from religion, to architecture, to military conquests, and so on. Also, they are not presented in any particular order.

Since this course offering is a collection derived from so many different sources, it is not cohesive or sequential. Had the lectures been presented in more of a chronological sequence, the presentation may have had a semblance of cohesion. Also, because of the derivation from a variety of previous lectures, there is no course syllabus like those offered with so many of The Great Courses lectures.

If someone is interested in a broad overview of ancient civilizations, this lecture series might be a good place to start. However, for someone interested in more in-depth learning, they would be better advised to select individual courses and tackle one subject or one civilization at a time.

[supraja · Rating 1 out of 5]

if you want to listen to people being fan-girling over Greece and Rome for 19 hours, this is for you. As for the occasional mentions of other civilizations, it sounded like they stole it from my demeaning 2nd grade textbook

[G. Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, most informative, and a wide range of cultures

[Hein Matthew Hattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great sampler. Half an hour from a military historian, then 30 minutes from a philosopher, then 30 minutes from an architect, then 30 minutes on ancient Peru.

[David Pulliam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting lectures, kind of like a buffet.

[Selena]

It was good to learn about various topics but a bit jarring to have the lecturer change every time and keep hearing "In my last lecture I covered...." or "in my next lecture, we'll discuss..."

[Jordan Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh... The title of this book ended up being somewhat oxymoronic. Much of it was retelling of historic facts without much critical thought or application. I did enjoy one of the few lectures that was not about ancient Greece. Instead, it was about ancient South America and the professor reserved a small portion of his lecture to critique the study of archeology and its failure to discover and understand ancient cultures - such as those in the Americas - that did not rely on stone.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirty-six lectures from some top university and college professors on one lecture in their history course. Love these audio books, and the Great Lecture series.