Download or read book The Historians History of the World in Twenty Five Volumes Prolegomena Egypt Mesopotamia written by Various Authors and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 986 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The countries that laid the foundation of our civilisation are not of those through which traffic passes on its way from land to land. Neither Babylon nor Egypt lies on one of the natural highways of the world; they lie hidden, encircled by mountains or deserts, and the seas that wash their shores are such as the ordinary seafarer avoids rather than frequents. But this very seclusion, which to us, with our modern ideas, seems a thing prejudicial to culture, did its part toward furthering the development of mankind in these ancient lands; it assured to their inhabitants a less troublous life than otherwise falls to the lot of nations under primitive conditions. Egypt, more particularly, had no determined adversary, nor any that could meet her on equal terms close at hand. To west of her stretched a desert, leading by interminable wanderings to sparsely populated lands. On the east the desert was less wide indeed, but beyond it lay the Red Sea, and he who crossed it did but reach another desert, the Arabian waste. Southward for hundreds of miles stretched the barren land of Nubia, where even the waterway of the Nile withholds its wonted service, so that the races of the Sudan are likewise shut off from Egypt. And even the route from Palestine to the Nile, which we are apt to think of as so short and easy, involved a march of several days through waterless desert and marshy ground. These neighbour countries, barren as they are, were certainly inhabited, but the dwellers there were poor nomads; they might conquer Egypt now and again, but they could not permanently injure her civilisation. Thus the people which dwelt in Egypt could enjoy undisturbed all the good things their country had to bestow. For in this singular river valley it was easier for men to live and thrive than in most other countries of the world. Not that the life was such as is led in those tropic lands where the fruits of earth simply drop into the mouth, and the human race grows enervated in a pleasant indolence; the dweller in Egypt had to cultivate his fields, to tend his cattle, but if he did so he was bounteously repaid for his labour. Every year the river fertilised his fields that they might bring forth barley and spelt and fodder for his oxen. He became a settled husbandman, a grave and diligent man, who was spared the disquiet and hardships endured by the nomadic tribes. Hence in this place there early developed a civilisation which far surpassed that of other nations, and with which only that of far-off Babylonia, where somewhat similar local conditions obtained, could in any degree vie. And this civilisation, and the national characteristics of the Egyptian nation which went hand in hand with it, were so strong that they could weather even a grievous storm. For long ago, in the remote antiquity which lies far beyond all tradition, Egypt was once overtaken by the same calamity which was destined to befall her twice within historic times—she was conquered by Arab Bedouins, who lorded it over the country so long that the Egyptians adopted their language, though they altered and adapted it curiously in the process. This transplantation of an Asiatic language to African soil is the lasting, but likewise the only, trace left by this primeval invasion; in all other respects the conquerors were merged into the Egyptian people, to whom they, as barbarians, had nothing to offer. There is nothing in the ideas and reminiscences of later Egyptians to indicate that a Bedouin element had been absorbed into the race; in spite of their language the aspect they present to us is that of the true children of their singular country, a people to whom the desert and its inhabitants are something alien and incomprehensible. It is the same scene, mutatis mutandis, that was enacted in the full light of history at the rise of Islam; then, too, the unwarlike land was subdued by the swift onset of the Bedouins, who also imposed their language on it in the days of their rule; and yet the Egyptian people remains ever the same, and the people who speak Arabic to-day in the valley of the Nile have little in common with the Arabs of the desert.
Download or read book The Historians History of the World Prolegomena Egypt Mesopotamia written by Henry Smith Williams and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Historians History of the World Vol 1 of 25 Illustrations written by Henry Smith Williams and published by THE TROW PRESS. This book was released on with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete world history should, properly speaking, begin with the creation of the world as man’s habitat, and should trace every step of human progress from the time when man first appeared on the globe. Unfortunately, the knowledge of to-day does not permit us to follow this theoretical obligation. We now know that the gaps in the history of human evolution as accessible to us to-day, vastly exceed the recorded chapters; that, in short, the period with which history proper has, at present, to content itself, is a mere moment in comparison with the vast reaches of time which, in recognition of our ignorance, we term “prehistoric.” But this recognition of limitations of our knowledge is a quite recent growth—no older, indeed, than a half century. Prior to 1859 the people of Christendom rested secure in the supposition that the chronology of man’s history was fully known, from the very year of his creation. One has but to turn to the first chapter of Genesis to find in the margin the date 4004 B.C., recorded with all confidence as the year of man’s first appearance on the globe. One finds there, too, a brief but comprehensive account of the manner of his appearance, as well as of the creation of the earth itself, his abiding-place. Until about half a century ago, as has just been said, the peoples of our portion of the globe rested secure in the supposition that this record and this date were a part of our definite knowledge of man’s history. Therefore, one finds the writers of general histories of the earlier days of the nineteenth century beginning their accounts with the creation of man, B.C. 4004, and coming on down to date with a full and seemingly secure chronology. Our knowledge of the world and of man’s history has come on by leaps and bounds since then, with the curious result that to-day no one thinks of making any reference to the exact date of the beginnings of human history,—unless, indeed, it be to remark that it probably reaches back some hundreds of thousands of years. The historian can speak of dates anterior to 4004 B.C., to be sure. The Egyptologist is disposed to date the building of the Pyramids a full thousand years earlier than that. And the Assyriologist is learning to speak of the state of civilisation in Chaldea some 6000 or 7000 years B.C. with a certain measure of confidence. But he no longer thinks of these dates as standing anywhere near the beginning of history. He knows that man in that age, in the centres of progress, had attained a high stage of civilisation, and he feels sure that there were some thousands of centuries of earlier time, during which man was slowly climbing through savagery and barbarism, of which we have only the most fragmentary record. He does not pretend to know anything, except by inference, of the “dawnings of civilisation.” Whichever way he turns in the centres of progress, such as China, Egypt, Chaldea, India, he finds the earliest accessible records, covering at best a period of only eight or ten thousand years, giving evidence of a civilisation already far advanced. Of the exact origin of any one of the civilisations with which he deals he knows absolutely nothing. “The Creation of Man,” with its fixed chronology, is a chapter that has vanished from our modern histories. To be continue in this ebook...
Download or read book The Historians History of the World written by Henry Smith Williams and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Monthly Review of Reviews written by and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Monthly Review of Reviews written by and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Monthly Review of Reviews written by Albert Shaw and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prolegomena Egypt Mesopotamia written by Henry Smith Williams and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Classified Catalog of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 1895 1902 In Three Volumes written by and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 916 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Classified Catalog of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 1895 1902 In Three Volumes written by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 1072 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dictionary Catalog of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library 1911 1971 written by New York Public Library. Research Libraries and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Guide to Historical Literature written by George Matthew Dutcher and published by New York : P. Smith. This book was released on 1949 with total page 1494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Guide to Historical Literature written by Henry Robinson Shipman and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 1258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Handbooks of Aging written by James E. Birren and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Historians History of the World Volume 1 written by Henry Smith Williams and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental work covers the entire history of humanity, from prehistoric times to the early 20th century. Williams employs a global perspective, examining the histories of various civilizations and their interactions with each other. This work is an essential resource for historians and anyone interested in world history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 2 vols written by Raymond Westbrook and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 1235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive survey of the world's oldest known legal systems, this collaborative work of twenty-two scholars covers over 3,000 years of legal history of the Ancient Near East. Each of the book's chapters represents a review of the law of a particular period and region, e.g. the Egyptian Old Kingdom, by a specialist in that area. Within each chapter, the material is organized under standardized legal categories (e.g. constitutional law, family law) that make for easy cross-referencing. The chapters are arranged chronologically by millennium and within each millennium by the three major politico-cultural spheres of the region: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia and the Levant. An introduction by the editor discusses the general character of Ancient Near Eastern Law.
Download or read book Choice written by Julia Johnson and published by Totowa, N.J. : Rowman and Littlefield. This book was released on 1976 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
