検索キーワード： 著者 "Charles River Editors" すべてのカテゴリー

As the oft-repeated and invariably accurate pearl of wisdom goes, a dog truly is man's best friend. For a long time, people have almost universally loved dogs, and it seems to have been that way for at least tens of thousands of years. When affection is abundantly and consistently expressed, this pure, unspoken, wholesome love is one that is very much requited, and then some. This bond can be demonstrated by the mere existence of pet keepers who unironically refer to themselves as “dog parents,” not merely “dog owners”.

The concept of international trade was born in the ancient Mediterranean, which provided the perfect set of circumstances needed to produce an intricate trading system, whose influence can still be seen in present-day economic practices. The ancient Mediterranean was home to a diverse range of cultures and landscapes, encompassing deserts, forests, islands, and fertile plains.

The birth of Europe as people know it today was hardly an easy and effortless process. The Old World was reshaped by centuries of continuous wars, raids, and the falls and rises of empires. The most turbulent of these events happened at the beginning of the Middle Ages, from the third through seventh centuries CE. This was the time when the old slave society gave way to the feudal system that marked the latter Middle Ages, and it was also a period of battles between the Roman Empire and various barbarian peoples.

When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament.

On the evening of May 17, 1980, a day before the Peruvian electorate - the most representative in the nation’s history - was due to go to the polls for the first authentic presidential election since 1963, a curious thing happened. In the tiny mountain town of Chuschi, little more than a hamlet nestled in a valley on the western slopes of the Andes, a group of armed youth broke the lock on the town hall and removed all of the ballot boxes, papers, and voting lists prepared for the following day.

Egypt in the 13th century was a glorious kingdom to behold. However, there was another factor that made Cairo infamous. The city represented the last bastion of the Muslim world. In 1258, the Mongols sacked Baghdad, destroying the capital of the mighty Islamic Abbasid Caliphate, which was a major blow to the Islamic world. The Mongol armies continued west into the holy land of Syria and Palestine. There, the Mongols met the foe to rival them in war: The Mamluks. Hailing from the Eurasian steppes, the Mamluks were not Arab, but ethnically Turkish, enslaved at a young age.

When the Spaniards "discovered" Yucatán, they thought it was an island. Although they later realized that it was part of the vast country that Cortés had conquered, they were not very wrong to think of it as an isle, considering the zealous and independent spirit that has characterized its inhabitants then and now. Although it has been part of Mexico for 170 years, it was encouraged by the example of Texas, compelling the peninsula to twice proclaim its independence and create the short-lived Republic of Yucatán.

The Late Bronze Age Near East (c. 1500-1200 BCE) was a time and place where great kingdoms and empires vied for land and influence, playing high stakes diplomatic games, trading, and occasionally going to war with each other in the process. The Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, and several smaller Canaanite kingdoms were all part of this system, which was one of the first true “global” systems in world history and also one of the most materially prosperous eras in antiquity.

In 1938, the Soviet Union film company Mosfilm released the motion picture Alexander Nevsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It is a historical drama depicting the defense of the Republic of Novgorod against an invasion of the Teutonic Knights in the mid-13th century. The eponymous hero of the story, the Prince of Novgorod, leads his troops against the German knights on a field of solid ice.

Scientists have long attempted to understand Earth’s past, and in service to that effort, they have divided the world’s history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. For example, the current eon is called the Phanerozoic Eon, which means “visible life”. This is the eon in which multicellular life has evolved and thrived. Before this, life was microscopic (single cells).

The Magyars: The History and Legacy of the Medieval Tribes That Established the Kingdom of Hungary examines the Magyars and their culture, from their origins through the Arpad Dynasty to their raids on Europe, the establishment of a royal dynasty, and their integration into Western civilization, marking the transition from the Magyars to Hungarians.

Tom Horn: The Controversial Life and Legacy of One of the Wild West’s Most Famous Gunslingers chronicles Horn’s time as a scout, cowboy, Pinkerton agent, and writer, and how he became one of the most famous folk legends.

The long agony of the “sick man of Europe”, an expression used by the tsar of Russia to depict the falling Ottoman Empire, could almost blind people to its incredible power and history. Preserving its mixed heritage - coming from both its geographic position, rising above the ashes of the Byzantine Empire, and the tradition inherited from the Muslim conquests - the Ottoman Empire lasted more than six centuries.

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. The embrace of Christianity and Islam, even today, is not necessarily to the exclusion of ancestral spirits, nor the essentials of witchcraft and sorcery. The precarious security of albino people in east and central Africa, whose body parts are sought after in traditional “medicine,” is testimony to the fact that these superstitions are alive and well.

By the dawn of the 17th century, Portuguese influence in Africa fell into decline, and the occasions of European contact with Ethiopia became very few and far between. It would be another three centuries before another European would venture into the holy precincts of Lalibela as part of a British military expedition mounted in 1867. Africa’s Origin Stories examines the various legends, how they formed, the evolution of African beliefs, and how they’ve affected countless cultures; you will learn about African mythology like never before.

In the time period between the fall of Rome and the spread of the Renaissance across the European continent, many of today’s European nations were formed. The Catholic Church rose to great prominence. Some of history’s most famous wars occurred. And a social class system was instituted that lasted over 1,000 years.

The proud Virginian entered the war in uncertain times, and there were understandable doubts about how well he could lead soldiers, but through a combination of skill and luck, he became one of his country’s earliest and foremost military heroes. After the war, he would go on to a distinguished political career, and he would find himself caught up in civil unrest toward the end of his life.

Of all the steppe peoples in the medieval period, perhaps none were more important to European history than the Magyars. Like the Huns and Avars before them and the Cumans and Mongols after them, the Magyars burst into Europe as a destructive, unstoppable horde, taking whatever they wanted and leaving a steady stream of misery in their wake. They used much of the same tactics as the other steppe peoples and lived a similar, nomadic lifestyle.

The history of Ukraine is a fascinating story of how cultures, political systems, religions, and power have met, intersected, morphed, and expanded. The region was relatively sparsely populated for much of ancient history, a wilderness of rivers, forests, and steppes, but that does not detract from the rich historical development of the region. Modern Ukraine examines the turbulent history of the country in the last 120 years, from being absorbed by the Russians to the ongoing conflicts. You will learn about modern Ukraine like never before.

The history of Ukraine is a fascinating story of how cultures, political systems, religions, and power have met, intersected, morphed, and expanded. The region was relatively sparsely populated for much of ancient history, a wilderness of rivers, forests, and steppes, but that does not detract from the rich historical development of the region. This geographical formation has influenced some of the country’s key historical developments, as well as the location of its major settlements.