The Ancient World

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Before 1000 BCE

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

1000 BCE to CE 500 -- Survival, Power and War

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

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

Greeks, Democracy and Slavery -- Draconian Athens, Sparta, Athenian democracy, the culture of slavery

The Greeks at War, 494 to 371 BCE -- the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian Wars and end of Spartan power

Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Civilization -- empire, dissintegration, Jews and failed revolutions

The Roman Republic -- Rise and Demise to Augustus Caesar

The Roman Empire Declines and Disintegrates -- 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 Upanishads, new sects, epic literature, Gupta empire

The Religious Impulse in China -- conqurors, human sacrifice, Confucius, Mozi, Buddhism and Taoism

Confucianism and Buddhism to Korea -- from animism to wars fought under the banner of Buddhism

Myths among the Ancient Japanese -- Creation, and ancestors descended from the gods

Religion, Myth and the Ancient Greeks -- stories by Homer and Hesiod, cults, resurrection, the Olympics and war

The Gods of Early Rome -- heavenly bodies, religious authority, importations, anti-druids, family values

Ancient Zoroastrians -- gods and the Persians, Zarathustra, optimism against evil

Manichaeism, a Universalist Faith -- the prophet Mani and his demise, 3rd century CE

Hellenism and Jews -- cultural diffusions, integration and trade versus religious traditionalists

Jews and Christianity, to 500 CE -- 2nd century BCE to Augustine in the 5th century CE