Halsall Home | Medieval Sourcebook | Modern History Sourcebook
Other History Sourcebooks: African | East Asian | Indian | IslamicJewish | Women's | Global | Science

Main | Ancient Near East | Greece | Rome

INTERNET ANCIENT HISTORY SOURCEBOOK

THEMES IN UNDERSTANDING ANCIENT SOCIETIES

The mass of information about the past in the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook is overwhelming. Rather than working through all the material,   as if one thing happened after another, one way to make sense of it is to see that there are a number of recurrent themes in human history. Of course we know more about some societies than others, and each society has something unique. But almost all human societies have had to deal in some way with common issues. For instance:

 


CONTENTS


SUGGESTED READINGS

HOW TO ORGANIZE HUMAN SOCIETY (POLITICS)

Monarchy

Lawgiving

War Making

Other Polities

Men, Women and Society


HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF NATURE

Gods

Gods and Creation

Gods and Judgment

Gods as Saviors

Gods and Sexual Life

Death

Religious Organization

The Human Encounter with Evil

Philosophy

Science

What Makes a Person Wise


HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR THE PAST & THE PRESENT

Myth

History

Entertainment

 


© This text is copyright. The specific electronic form, and any notes and questions are copyright. Permission is granted to copy the text, and to print out copies for personal and educational use. No permission is granted for commercial use.

If any copyright has been infringed, this was unintentional. The possibility of a site such as this, as with other collections of electronic texts, depends on the large availability of public domain material from texts translated before 1923. [In the US, all texts issued before 1923 are now in the public domain. Texts published before 1964 may be in the public domain if copyright was not renewed after 28 years. This site seeks to abide by US copyright law: the copyright status of texts here outside the US may be different.] Efforts have been made to ascertain the copyright status of all texts here, although, occasionally, this has not been possible where older or non-US publishers seem to have ceased existence. Some of the recently translated texts here are copyright to the translators indicated in each document. These translators have in every case given permission for non-commercial reproduction. No representation is made about the copyright status of offsite links: note that for the Ancient History Sourcebook, unlike the Medieval Sourcebook and Modern History Sourcebook, most texts are offsite. This site is intended for educational use. Notification of copyright infringement will result in the immediate removal of a text until its status is resolved.

Paul Halsall, April 1998
halsall@murray.fordham.edu