The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome Hardcover – Illustrated, March 17, 2007

Given the range of material Bauer covers in this tome, it is amazing how well she weaves the timelines and stories together. The first section of the book begins with the civilizations with only fragmentary records. None of her work is original, but she assembles stories of Sumer, what would become Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China into a coherent narrative.She then moves through the various twists and turns of various civilizations as the records improve, new technological and civic inventions grow, and cities become more prominent. What emerges is something that is more complex than the pictures of clay tables with cuneiform writing and fragments of pottery that I remember from my studies of history. Thankfully, she also expands the scope of her interest beyond a flyby of Mesopotamia leading to the Greeks and Romans and landing in a Euro-centric focus. What we get is a fairly balanced record of known civilizations, including those in the East, the Mid-East, and toward the West.Bauer is surveying four or five thousand years of history of multiple, integrated civilizations. It is amazing that she was able to sort through so much material. This, of course, means that there is a great deal detail left out and many places where Bauer was forced to pick a reading of history and run with it. It is clear from some of her footnotes that she is aware of alternate interpretations, but it’s a survey, not a monograph on a particular subject.The book is written in a manner that will displease some Christians and also anger vocal secularists. Bauer assumes an ancient earth and treats the Hebrew Bible in the same manner she treats other historical sources.This, of course, means that she is much less derogatory toward the value of those ancient documents than many secular scholars would be, which leads to accusations of religious bias. At the same time, she also does not hold to a young earth and sometimes floats assertions that the biblical record was sanitized to make certain kings look good. This perspective will tend to annoy some Christians, particularly homeschoolers seeking to rigorously shield their children from opposing views. (A quick scan of the Amazon reviews shows that both of these positions exist in decent numbers.)Frankly, as a conservative Christian, I think this book is an excellent way to introduce a child later in her schooling to critical sources. There will be a point at which our kids are going to have to engage with other voices to grow and learn, Bauer’s approach is good historically and at least fair toward the Judeo-Christian tradition. I can’t give advice to secularist parents, other than to note that her assumptions are pretty mild and certainly not satisfying in any religious way. This isn’t a book seeking to promote the Judeo-Christian tradition as the one, true religion. It also doesn’t go out of the way to bash Judaism and Christianity, either. As a religious text, it fails; as a history book, it’s pretty good.Aside from debates about Bauer’s biases, this is, above all, an extremely readable book. It certainly isn’t a novel, graphic or otherwise, but it was a pleasure to pick this book up and read a couple of chapters every day. I wouldn’t recommend the volume for elementary readers, but for a thoughtful high schooler this would make an excellent text for homeschool or as summer reading. I picked up an electronic copy of the study guide that goes with the book and it is well structured with enough questions and answers to help this integrate easily into the homeschooling parent’s life, without having to become an expert.This is the sort of book that I wish I had had access to when I was younger. I would have read the volume just for edification, beyond my regular school work. I am looking forward to the next two volumes in the series and very hopeful that Bauer writes the fourth and final volume in the very near future.Note: This is an edited version of a review posted at Ethics and Culture.

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of RomeI enjoyed the book throughout, it could not have been an easy task for Ms. Bauer to begin her three book series by covering nearly four millennia of history.I ended up buying the entire series, The Medieval World and the Renaissance World, as I wanted to continue the story as she tells it so smoothly.In fact, she drew me into areas of history that I had not thought of exploring for the near term, such as the Shang, Zhou and Han dynasties of Ancient China, of which I have now saved more than a handful of books to explore for purchase.There were two small issues with this book, yet I still felt it earned a five star review. One is the map of Egypt was printed upside down a few times, whereas the other maps were correct with North facing upwards.Yes, Lower Egypt is in the North, and Upper Egypt is in the South, but that would not be a good reason to print the map upside down in my opinion.The other issue was with the extreme overuse of Ibid, which at times went back a few pages. It would have been more useful to do as is outlined below:"The 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style discourages the use of ibid., which previously was used to refer the same source cited in the previous footnote. Instead of using ibid., a shortened form of the citation may be used."Ms. Bauer is a wonderful story teller, I feel she will draw me further into areas of history that I had not yet considered, as I am currently reading her second book of the series.Thank you, well done

I downloaded the Kindle version of this book. I had no problems with it. Even the graphics were quite good.I had world history in HS nearly 50 years ago. And I had another course in college. While I always enjoyed history, ancient history was always focused on the parts that were direct antecedents of European history. Ancient history was always problematic because there isn’t much solid to go on. So the courses were mostly view maps showing rounded blobs superimposed on familiar geography with weird sounding civilization names that seemed to be at war or trade with each other. Frankly, that part of history was boring. As I grew older, I wondered about a more holistic approach to world history. I wanted to know what was happening in China during the time of early Mesopotamian history.Then this book came into my life. She writes history like I want to read it. It’s not academia-speak. She’s really honest. She says what is known and what is unknown. She presents theories and explains the pros and cons of each one. And how she can do this without it sounding like a dry text book amazes me. I’m reading this book like a read an enjoyable work of fiction. But it’s not fiction. I’m not a historian. I’m an interested and educated lay person. When I finish this volume, I’ll move on chronologically to the other two books in the series.I’m very happy I purchased this. I’d recommend it to people who have an interest in this, but don’t want to devote the effort to slog through a textbook. I’m retired and I read for pleasure. This is one of the most pleasurable history books I’ve read in a long time.