Ancient Philosophy

This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of The Republic. Translated by Raymond Larson. The Republic is an explosion of thought; a ten-book brainstorm of one of the greatest minds of all-time.

In this audiobook, you will be led on a journey through almost 2,000 years of Chinese history, showing you all the ups and downs of those ancient times, the sufferings and joys of the Chinese people, along with their greatest achievements and failures. Dynasties will change, people will be killed and born, art made and destroyed, but the Chinese civilization will prevail, rising from humble beginnings to an empire that at some points outshined any other in the world at that time.

The Tao of Wisdom is the book for anyone who is interested in the Tao Te Ching and wants to understand it more deeply. With this book, Derek Lin brings you inspirational stories that reveal the profound meaning of key passages and central concepts in the Tao. The wise words of Lao Tzu come into clear focus like never before!

Whether we realize it or not, stories and characters from Timbuktu are everywhere in our modern-day lives. The great Mansa Musa was the most iconic king of the Mali Empire. Considered to be one of the richest men ever, Mansa Musa is not only the right answer to a commonly asked trivia question but also one of the inspirations behind Marvel’s Black Panther. Although the other kings who reigned over Timbuktu may not be known quite as well as Mansa Musa, their lives have also inspired stories we are quite familiar with today.

You may have studied the ancient Persian Empire in school, but have you ever wondered what kinds of stories the ancient Persians told to themselves and their children? The roots of Persian myth extend back more than five thousand years to the culture of the Aryan people who migrated into Iran from India. Ideas from this ancient culture have enjoyed amazing longevity and are alive even today as part of the Zoroastrian faith, which is still practiced in Iran, India, and several other places around the world.

In the winelands of 16th-century Germany, Obsopoeus witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus' text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.

The Hittites built a remarkable civilization that deserves a spot in history. Sadly, few historians have been ready to tackle the task of uncovering the true story of these astonishing people. Thus, it can be hard for people to find an easily understood and cohesive resource on this fascinating civilization. But that is about to change. In this new Captivating History audiobook, you will discover the truth about this fascinating ancient civilization.

This compassionate, personal, and illuminating work of nonfiction draws on the author's celebrated work as a director of socially conscious theater to connect listeners with the power of an ancient artistic tradition. For years Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient tragedies for current and returned servicemen and women, addicts, tornado and hurricane victims, and a wide range of other at-risk people in society.

The Western Zhou dynasty left an indelible mark on Chinese history, shaping the nation’s identity and cultural trajectory. Through the lens of jade artifacts, this book delves into the profound changes wrought by the Western Zhou period, offering insights into its political, social, and philosophical underpinnings. By juxtaposing ancient Greek philosophy with Chinese thought, the book elucidates fundamental differences between Eastern and Western cultures. Organized chronologically into early, middle, and late periods of the Western Zhou dynasty, the book examines jade artifacts within ...

Preeminent French cynic and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) collected ideas and thoughts that were too short for pamphlets but worth saving for later development. These jottings eventually became the Philosophical Dictionary, filled with witty and wise entries on subjects as diverse as Atheism and Kissing - a compendium of the whole spectrum of Voltaire's ideas.

Dynasties, city empires, gods, and legends - all of these were first developed in the lush region of Mesopotamia thousands of years ago, but how did one strip of land become home to some of the most impactful empires in history? Discover a time when mankind was trying to make sense of the world around them but managed to create mighty empires that still maintain an influence on our lives today. Learn about the lives of the rulers, artisans, and warriors who introduced literacy, farming, and sophisticated warfare to the ancient world.

In How to Be, Adam Nicolson takes us on a glorious, immersive journey. Grounded in the belief that places give access to minds, however distant and strange, this book reintroduces us to our earliest thinkers through the lands they inhabited. To know the mental occupations of Homer or Heraclitus, one must visit their cities, sail their seas, and find landscapes not overwhelmed by the millennia that have passed but retain the atmosphere of that ancient life. Nicolson takes us to the dawn of investigative thought and a nexus of cross-cultural connection.

The Greco-Persian Wars are often portrayed as a battle between good and evil. This is simultaneously an exaggeration and an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that this war, or series of wars, fought between some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient era helped to plot the course of human history that we have been following up until this very day.

Do you want to learn about Pythagoras but don’t have the time or patience to read a thick book? Then this short and concise book “Pythagoras of Samos: A Short Introduction to His Life and Teachings” is for you!! Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, have been credited with many great accomplishments, including the following: Pythagoras’ most famous achievement, the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. As a ...

After more than 2,300 years, the Greek philosopher Aristotle still remains one of the most influential thinkers who has ever lived. There was hardly any field of human knowledge in existence during his day in which he did not make a major contribution. Additionally, he probed areas which were never before examined. Indeed, one could make the claim that no individual person has ever known as much about this world as Aristotle. His analyses of zoology and logic paved the way for modern forensic techniques, and for which every scientist down to this day owes him a debt of gratitude.

How to Have Willpower brings together two profound ancient meditations on how to overcome pressures that encourage us to act against our own best interests—Plutarch's essay On Dysopia or How to Resist Pressure and Prudentius's poetic allegory Psychomachia or How to Slay Your Demons. Challenging the idea that humans are helpless victims of vice, these works—introduced and presented in vivid, accessible new prose translations by Michael Fontaine—emphasize the power of personal choice and the possibility of personal growth, as they offer insights and practical advice about resisting temptation.

What is love? In poetry, songs, fiction, movies, psychology, and philosophy, love has been described, admired, lamented, and dissected in endless ways. Is love based on physical attraction? Does it bring out our better selves? How does it relate to sex? Is love divine? Plato's Symposium is one of the oldest, most influential, and most profound explorations of such questions—it is even the source of the idea of "Platonic love."

The Mycenaeans were the first advanced civilization to develop on mainland Greece, and were responsible for much of the urban organization and cultural development seen in the early ancient Greeks. The Mycenaeans created sprawling palatial states, unique and sophisticated works of art, and possessed a writing system that could be used to make records.

How does the physics we know today - a highly professionalized enterprise, inextricably linked to government and industry - link back to its origins as a liberal art in Ancient Greece? What is the path that leads from the old philosophy of nature and its concern with humankind's place in the universe to modern massive international projects that hunt down fundamental particles and industrial laboratories that manufacture marvels? This audiobook introduces us to Islamic astronomers and mathematicians calculating the size of the Earth while their caliphs conquered much of it and more.

Born into slavery in the first century AD, Epictetus was a leading Greek philosopher of the Stoic school. He spent most of his life in Rome before the Emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city in AD 93; his exile then took him to Nicopolis in Greece. His teachings were recorded by his pupil Arrian, who published both the Encheiridion and Discourses.