Civilisations of Antiquity

Abstract

This book draws attention to two important but often ignored facts about pre-industrial antiquity. The first is that certain lifestyles and life-conditions in antiquity, along with their corresponding attitudes, motivations, dispositions, and practices do promote our physical and social-psychological well-being much more efficiently than certain modern lifestyles and life-conditions. The second is that the increasingly globalised standards of excellence in the artistic, scientific and technological enterprise have had a long gestation and are the common heritage of mankind: they date back several thousand years and are the culmination of various creative and imaginative efforts by innumerable, often anonymous, individuals from several cultures of antiquity, including African, Arabic, Chinese, Graeco-Roman, Indian, Mesoamerican, and Mesopotamian cultures. These two facts must interest all those who seek to understand how the past has shaped the present and can guide us towards the future.