Ancient Worlds: An Epic History of East and West

You know how sometimes you open a package and don't get what you expect? Sometimes it's worse, and that's not great, but sometimes it's better, and that's always a plus to be sure. But sometimes, it's also nice to open a package and get exactly what you expected - and that's definitely the case with this book, at least for the most part. In the Introduction Scott promises that he's going to talk about how the ancient world was actually a lot more connected than we've always assumed, and that's exactly what he does. He shows how civilisations like ancient China, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, ancient India and the great shifting cauldron of cultures that's the Near and Middle East. These cultures tend to be discussed separately in schools and universities, but Scott suggests that maybe there's more to be gleaned by viewing them as connected instead of separate: a bigger, broader view of history that shows how humans do not and have never existed in isolation. That's something important to keep in mind, I think, especially in the 21st century.