Human History--What is it? When does it begin? And where?

Past human history is exceedingly difficult to reconstruct. The historian must possess the objectivity of a scientist and the subjectivity of a humanist. Some of the most dramatic cultural and technological developments in human history--agriculture and animal domestication, control and use of fire, metallurgy and the use of the wheel, urbanization--took place in a prehistoric setting. To understand these developments, historians must make the mute archaeological record speak.

This book offers an introduction to the ancient world, encompassing a broad spectrum: from prehistoric times to the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon; from Western Asia and Egypt through the eastern Mediterranean to the borders of Greece. It endeavors to discern how past cultural achievements--art, literature, religion, and science--arise from and reflect historical circumstances.

From the Author's Introduction