The Ancient World

  CONQUEST, MIGRATIONS, EMPIRE, SLAVERY, AUTHORITARIAN KINGS AND PRIESTHOODS,
  PROSTRATIONS, CASTE, RICH AND POOR, SENSE AND NONSENSE

Survival, Power and War

Billions of Years -- a scientific theory -- from the earth's beginning to human species

Dinosaurs, Birds, and Survival -- a focus on the Triasic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods

Genes, Ageing and Evolution -- creature biologies

Biology, the Brain and History -- distribution of differences among humans

Origins of War -- from tribal raiding to empire

Primal Religions -- hunter-gatherers, agricultural gods and sacrifice, early civilization

Civilizations before 1000 BCE -- Africa, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, the Americas, Europe, Canaan

India, Empire and Chaos -- rise and fall of the Maurya and Gupta empires

Empire and the Ancient Chinese -- monarchy and rebellion from the Zhou to Liu-Song dynasties

The Middle East to the 400s BCE -- Israel, Judah, Assyrians, Persians and the rise of Judaism

Greeks, War and Hellenistic Civilization -- Athens, Sparta, Alexander, Jews and failed revolutions

Roman Republic -- Rise and Demise to Augustus Caesar

Roman Empire -- Augustus Caesar to the last emperor in the West

The Parthian and Sassanid Empires -- more rise and fall

Africa, Iron and Empire -- the Nubians, iron in the west, Askum and Meroe, the Bantu

The Ancient Japanese -- from the legend of Jimmu to the rise of the Yamato dynasty

The Americas, Southeast Asia and Oceania -- the Olmecs and Teotihuacán, Maya, Polynesians

Science and Philosophy to 500 CE

Philosophy in India: Upanishad Writers; Buddhism -- spiritualists, materialists, Siddartha Gautama

Philosophy in China: Confucious, Taoists and Others -- Mozi, Laozi, Xunzi, Legalists, I-ching, Yin and Yang

The pre-Socratics -- Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Xenophanese, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, et cetera

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle -- gods of Homer, nature of idea, categories and science

Cynics, Skeptics, Stoics and Epicureans -- Antithenes, Diogenes, Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus

Philosophy and the Roman Empire-- Cicero, Senaca, Plutarch, Lucian, Marcus Aurelius, Galen, Plotinus

Religion and Change: after 1000 BCE

Changing Hinduism, the Jains and Buddhists

The Religious Impulse in China

Confucianism and Buddhism to Korea

Myth and the Japanese

Religion and the Ancient Greeks

Ancient Persians and Zoroastrians

The Rise of Judaism

Hellenism and the Jews

The Gods of Early Rome

Manichaeism, a Universalist Faith

Judaism, Christianity and Rome

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