Ancient Civilizations: The Emergence of States and Empires

Ancient Civilizations: The Emergence of States and Empires offers a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and how they were discovered, drawing on many avenues of inquiry including archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and both historical and ethnohistorical records.This book covers the earliest civilizations in North Africa, Eurasia and the Americas, from Egypt and the Sumerians to the Indus Valley, Shang China, and the Maya.Gone are the days, however, when it was sufficient to study a too limited range of “classic” early civilizations to understand how early societies throughout the world experienced the transition to cities and empires.Ancient Civilizations hence also covers the first states of Africa south of the Sahara, divine kings and empires in East and Southeast Asia, the early Aegean civilizations, Greece and Rome, and the Aztec and Inka empires of Mesoamerica and the Andes. A