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Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity
Sarah B. Pomeroy · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWhen God Was a Woman
Merlin Stone · 265 pages
Here, archaeologically documented is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Known by many names, she reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. How did the change in women's roles come about? By documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmans, Stone details an ancient conspiracy that laid the foundation for one of culture's greatest shams--the legend of Adam and fallen Eve.
The Gnostic Gospels
Elaine Pagels · 184 pages
The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the mo
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
Riane Eisler · 261 pages
"In prehistorical times, Eisler argues, women and men lived together in egalitarian communities devoted to nurturance; with the imposition of male domination, female values gave way to creeds of hierarchy, aggression, power, obedience. Eisler, a futurist, posits a new society based on the recovery of more humane values."--Library journal (6/1/85).
Caesars' Wives: The Women Who Shaped the History of Rome
Annelise Freisenbruch · 337 pages
Documents the stories of eight wives of Roman rulers, assessing their historical contributions and cultural influence and drawing parallels between modern first ladies and the lives of such ancient-world figures as Livia, Helena, and Julia.
A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
Yvon Thebert, Michel Rouche, Evelyne Patlagean, Peter R.L. Brown · 704 pages
First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slaves―from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques o
Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt
Joyce A. Tyldesley · 327 pages
During the dynastic period (3000 BC - 332 BC), as the Greek historian Herodotus was intrigued to observe, Egyptian women enjoyed a legal, social and sexual independence unrivalled by their Greek or Roman sisters, unrivalled, indeed, by women in Europe until the late nineteenth century. They could own and trade in property, work outside the home, marry foreigners and even live alone without the pro
The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt
Kara Cooney · 309 pages
Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty—was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king.
Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Women's History of the World
Rosalind Miles · 352 pages
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Reza Aslan · 336 pages
Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee gathering followers to establish the "Kingdom of God." He was tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens
The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries
Rodney Stark · 246 pages
The idea that Christianity started as a clandestine movement among the poor is a widely accepted notion. Yet it is one of many myths that must be discarded if we are to understand just how a tiny messianic movement on the edge of the Roman Empire became the dominant faith of Western civilization. In a fast-paced, highly readable book that addresses beliefs as well as historical facts, Rodney Stark
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
Margalit Fox · 363 pages
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, *The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code* tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on
Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology
C.W. Ceram · 212 pages
Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore
Bettany Hughes · 458 pages
For close to three thousand years, Helen of Troy has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus and the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East and West. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of He
Libraries in the Ancient World
Lionel Casson · 177 pages
"This book tells the story of ancient libraries from their very beginnings, when "books" were clay tablets and writing was a new phenomenon. Renowned classicist Lionel Casson takes us on a lively tour, from the royal libraries of the most ancient Near East, through the private and public libraries of Greece and Rome, down to the first Christian monastic libraries. To the founders of the first pub
The Lost Tomb
Kent R. Weeks · 330 pages
The world was astonished when American Egyptologist Kent Weeks discovered an elaborate tomb deep beneath the surface of Egypt's legendary Valley of the Kings. Soon he realized that this was the centuries-old burial site for the sons of Ramesses II. Previous to this discovery, no one had been certain where - or even if - this spectacular tomb existed. Now, in The Lost Tomb, Weeks takes readers into
Cleopatra and Antony
Diana Preston · 342 pages
The story of the world's best-remembered celebrity couple, set against the political backdrop of their time. In 30 BCE, the 39-year-old queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror, the future first emperor Augustus. A few days earlier, her lover of eleven years, Mark Antony, had himself committed suicide. Historian Diana Preston explo
The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War
Caroline Alexander · 296 pages
Many have forgotten that the subject of the "Illiad" was war--not merely the poetical romance of the war at Troy, but war, in all its enduring devastation. This groundbreaking reading of Homer's epic poem restores the poet's vision of the tragedy of war, addressing many of the central questions that define the war experience of every age.
Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome
Stephen Dando-Collins · 328 pages
"A unique and splendidly researched story, following the trials and triumphs of Julius Caesar's Legio X-arguably the most famous legion of its day-from its activation to the slogging battle of Munda and from Thapsus, Caesar's tactical masterpiece, to the grim siege of the Jewish fortress of Masada. More than a mere unit account, it incorporates the history of Rome and the Roman army at the height
Cleopatra: A Life
Stacy Schiff · 441 pages
From back cover: Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons; her supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.