Author Description

Product Description Antiquity is a composite world history about religion, empire, success and failure, myth and secular ideas. One reader writes that she reads about ancient history purely for entertainment but expects it to be accurate and balanced and that the book "is really good on all points." Another writes that "so many unspoken questions of mine were answered" and that many 'ah-ha's' were uttered." A third writes that he has never "read such a well conceived and thoroughly enjoyable composite history of the ancient world." Antiquity cuts through common myths and describes the main currents of ancient times. From the Author Antiquity is a sketch of the ancient world of force and belief within the limits of the competent historian's ability to know it. Ancient times were immersed in slavery, lords and empire. Violence decided who should govern whom --in the name of the gods. Work was done by animal or human sweat and muscle. Few if any people in ancient times, from priest-king to commoner, were able to transcend the age in which they lived. No one knew where the world was going, and the superstitions and institutional weaknesses of ancient times continued into the Middle Ages. Today we understand antiquity better than did the people who lived it. We can look back to antiquity as something to rise above. Truth is no longer whatever some scribe wants it to be. People have progressed in understanding of the physical world, and people -- including people of faith -- have progressed politically and have improved their institutions. About the Author Frank E. Smitha was born in 1933. His website (fsmitha.com) offers his writings on world history and is much used by online libraries, teachers and students. After serving in the military from 1951 to 1954, Smitha attended junior college, traveled, and in 1963 entered U.C.L.A. as a junior. He moved to Berkeley in late 1964, and until 1973 held a part-time on the University of