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Antiquity: From the Birth of Sumerian Civilization to the Fall of the Roman Empire Paperback – Bargain Price, September 14, 2004

by Norman F. Cantor (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 106 ratings
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Bestselling author Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world -- from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500 B.C. in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 476. In Antiquity, Cantor covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of Christianity, and the triumph and decline of Rome.

In this fascinating and comprehensive analysis, the author explores social and cultural history, as well as the political and economic aspects of his narrative. He explains leading themes in religion and philosophy and discusses the environment, population, and public health. With his signature authority and insight, Cantor highlights the great books and ideas of antiquity that continue to influence culture today.

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  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    September 14, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.68 x 8 inches
  6. See all details
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About the Author

Norman F. Cantor was Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology, and Comparative Literature at New York University. His many books include In the Wake of the Plague, Inventing the Middle Ages, and The Civilization of the Middle Ages, the most widely read narrative of the Middle Ages in the English language. He died in 2004.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0091LJLAO
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (September 14, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.68 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 106 ratings

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Norman F. Cantor

Norman F. Cantor

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
106 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ichabod
5.0 out of 5 stars Among best surveys of the historical time
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
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Excellent survey of ancient times...though already long familiar with the subject matter, I found it a good refresher.. and excellently written...
3 people found this helpful
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4.0 out of 5 stars you're already a smart guy or gal if you are reading this review
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2015
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you're already a smart guy or gal if you are reading this review. get mores smarter on old stuff and read my homeboy's book, yo.
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JOHN
5.0 out of 5 stars Not boring
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2020
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Norman canter is always excellent
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Stargazer
3.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic, opinionated but worth reading
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2008
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This book serves as a rough and ready introduction to antiquity. It's short and covers a lot of ground. The writing is breezy and easy to digest.

If you have no background in this area and want some rough guidelines-- go for it. It covers the most important broad stokes well.

If you are familiar with ancient history this book suffers from many generalizations, oversimplifications and even some outright errors. Oh and the writing isn't very elegant. But Cantor still makes many good points and it's a challenge to spot some of these above problems and turn them over in your mind. Kind of auto-Socratic! Any big survey book spanning this range of time and cultures typically has lots of problems. At least this one makes some useful bridges between the ideas and cultures of antiquity and is a quick read.

This book has it's place among many better books on ancient history in my library.
20 people found this helpful
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Robert L Gilliland
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to read.
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2020
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I read the book out of interest. It was easy to read and very thorough. I did enjoy the book.
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MsVoyce
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Product, Arrived Quickly
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2019
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Good Product, Arrived Quickly
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Tim F. Martin
4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of the ancient world
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2005
_Antiquity_ by Norman F. Cantor is a very readable and useful general introduction to the history and culture of the ancient Mediterranean. Though he wrote in his introduction that this book covers antiquity from earliest humanity (about 2.5 million years ago) to the fall of the Roman Empire (in the west) in the fifth century A.D., the focus is primarily on the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome as well as on ancient Judaism and early Christianity (with Jewish history particularly well covered). Ancient Egypt is fairly well discussed though there is very light coverage on the civilizations of Mesopotamia and some of the other Mediterranean civilizations, such as those of the Minoans, Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians (and generally the latter only in context with Roman history). Having said that though, I still found the book worthwhile as it provided a nice review of ancient history.

The book has a somewhat odd format. Part I, which he titled the Basic Narrative, is a series of short chapters laying out basic facts about ancient times that he felt every educated person should know. Most of the chapters in this section are about five to ten pages in length. Part II, which he called Societies and Cultures, is over half the book and goes into much more detail, though also covering again some information mentioned in Part I. Part II had some particularly interesting sections, including a chapter on the legacy of Roman law (and on that of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest Roman lawyer of all time) and on divisions in the early Christian church. This latter chapter was particularly unusual, constructed as an imagined conservation between Saint Augustine (tremendously influential Christian theologian from early fifth century Tunisia), his sister Placida, and a one time friend of Augustine, Bishop Vincent, a leader of a Christian sect called the Donatists, one that Augustine was at odds with.

Cantor remarked several times how remarkable it was that the small city-state of Athens (counting farmers in the nearby countryside not more than 200,000 people at any one time) managed to forge an empire and to become for a time the predominant political, military, economic, and most importantly for us today cultural center for not only Greece but for the Mediterranean. This particular culture gave us Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, incredibly influential thinkers and writers that along with the Hebrew Bible were the foundations for Western civilization.

The author compared the Jews and the Athenians on one interesting point; both were cultures grounded in an epic historical myth. The Jews had their Exodus and the Athenians had the Trojan War as described in the epic poem _The Iliad_, both of which were national historical myths that gave "identity and moral authenticity" to their respective peoples. While the Jews were seen as "heroic refugees from slavery" and "righteous conquerors" of a pagan land, the Athenians saw themselves as descended from courageous warriors. Controversially, Cantor wrote that there is no evidence of any Jewish Exodus from Egypt (he does provide sources), though I myself had not read that the Exodus was wholly myth. Another observation he made, again new to me, was that Homer was not some folk poet nor were his writings folk stories that grew with time. Rather, Homer's writings were created specifically for the Athenian market, with his sequel to _The Iliad_, _The Odyssey_, revealed "clearly" that he was a "market-driven professional writer," one who borrowed heavily from traveler's stories and Egyptian fantasy in concocting his tale.

Ancient Judaism is very well covered with Cantor describing the evolution of the synagogue and how the modern threefold spilt in Jewish religious culture had it origins in ancient times, as well as the relatively late addition of the concept of personal immortality in Judaism, a concept that quietly entered the rabbinical mainstream around 200 B.C. as a "concession" to the anxious masses by religious leaders.

One interesting point he made several times in the book regarded a civilization's views of history and progress. For centuries the forces for change in the great societies of Egypt and Iraq were generally external rather than internal, spurred not generally by internal power struggles and change but by invasions (with one notable exception in Egypt, the attempt by the Pharaoh Akhenaton to impose a new monotheistic religion around the year 1330 B.C.). The Egyptians felt that events of the moment were transitory, that the present was eternal, and that the world was as a whole static. Egyptian literature did not have careful records of events or the distinctive traits of individual pharaohs, but rather strove to portray the divine ideal, the eternal nature of the subject, independent of time and space. History was at best cyclic. Similarly, many Greeks felt that history moved in circles, repeating itself infinitely. The Jews (and later the Christians) felt instead that history moved forward directly, unrepeatable, from the creation to the end of the world, all preordained by a divine plan. The Jewish idea that each event in history was singular and that history proceeded along a straight path was Cantor wrote to have a profound impact upon European thinking.

Though much of the book focuses on the history of the ancient Mediterranean and the importance of Aristotle, Plato, the Bible, Roman law, and Greek theater (among other things) to the foundation of Western civilization, the author did note some of the deficiencies of classical culture. While the Greeks gave us epic poems, philosophy, theatrical tragedies, and invented the natural sciences, history, and anthropology and the Romans a huge body of poetry and a system of law still more or less in use today in much of Europe, they gave us virtually nothing of the rich oral traditions of the ancient Mediterranean nor any accounts of the hopes, thoughts, and feelings of the millions of people of the era. Additionally, classical culture often lacked a social conscience, oblivious to slavery, despotism, poverty, disease, everyday cruelty, and "might makes right" ways of thinking.
4 people found this helpful
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J. Adams
2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the time
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2005
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While Cantor has written a lot about history, this book is not really very good. Some of his writting is too cynical, some is just plain wrong, and some so contrdictory as to be silly. His chapter about the Justinian code is ridiculous because the Justinian code is the wave of the future, a code subject to abuse, a threat to the left and right in Europe who model the European Union's proposed constitution after it, etc. I read the chapter twice to see if i missed something or that Cantor must not have read his own material because it was just plain dumb.

There are many books about this subject matter, thousands in fact, but i wouldn't waste my time with this book which is more like a Reader's Digest for Cliff Note readers about Antiquity. I read it because there were so many positive reviews, but the readers who are critical of the book have good reason to call Cantor to task.
16 people found this helpful
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