The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations

Customer Reviews

• Start here.....

  Wonderful overview and introduction to the cultures of ancient civilization. Of note is the inclusion of the "ancient" mesoamerican cultures from the 13th-14th centuries. (...some books fore go these cultures due entirely to European chronology.) Split into 5 parts each distinct culture receives a couple of paragraphs explaining their origins and high points. The author mostly focuses on the geographic and military realities while acknowledging intellectual and agricultural breakthroughs. As noted in other reviews the maps and presentation are outstanding! I love the color, cover, size, paper quality, text, and font of this book. You can't go wrong for $13. This is the best place to start before reading whole texts dedicated to the Sumerians, et al.

• Excellent introduction to ancient civilizations

  As an atlas, maps feature prominently in this slim overview, and they are very good -- interesting, informative, and well-designed. Ancient Mesopotamia gets the most attention, deservedly so, though ancient civilizations on all continents (except Australia) receive good introductory treatment. This is a slim volume, and lacks depth, but for what it is -- an atlas and an introduction -- it is first-rate. The maps really make the book. My only quibble, a minor one, is that a more extensive bibliography would have been helpful. Highly recommended.

• Not bad, but I did find a frustrating error.

  Okay,
  
  I got this book as a gift. It covers quite a bit of history in a small book. More of a starting off point for further research with other books. The photos and maps are very nice however. Most of the other books on history I looked at lacked such nice colorful images and maps.
  
  I did find one error so far, page 102, the Greek City States chapter. I was all into reading the story of the Spartan-Athens victory over the Persians in 480-479 but at the very bottom of the page the sentence does not finish.
  
  """Their victory is generally recognized as marking the beginning of the Classical age of """"
  
  I figured it would continue on the opposite page, however that page starts a new chapter. Kind of a dissapointment. Age of what????!!!! Now I'll never know. Haha!
  
  I'll still look into buying The Penguin Historical Atlas of Rome and Greece only because of the nice pictures and maps.

• Penguin Historical Atlas - Ancient Civilizations

  Adequate. Interesting and clear illustrations. (No one, of course, is going to agree with materials which had to be excluded in order to fit the estqablished perimeters.) Not as brilliant as Colin

• Neat book, size and great maps

  
  Very neat historical atlas. Excellent maps and interesting pictures on the sides. Civilizations are dealt with in brief 2-page summaries. This book obviously only intends to be an introduction to larger studies by other authors, and it accomplishes its objective well enough.
  
  The reader will surely feel inclined to further his or her research into one of the many early civilizations discussed here.
  
  Broad in scope, limited in depth, but pays off with the illustrations. A little setback, though, is its inclination to pay service to political correctness is -unfortunately- present in the text.
  
  I would have preferred a little more text-space on European and Near Eastern civilizations and less on the Asian ones, too foreign to my cares (should I be sorry for being honest? I don't think so).