{"title":"Books by Karen Radner","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780198715900","title":"Ancient Assyria","description":"Assyria was one of the most influential kingdoms of the Ancient Near East. In this Very Short Introduction, Karen Radner sketches the history of Assyria from city state to empire, from the early 2nd millennium BC to the end of the 7th century BC. Since the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria in the mid-19th century, its cities have been excavated extensively in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Israel, with further sites in Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan providing important information. The Assyrian Empire was one of the most geographically vast, socially diverse, multicultural, and multi-ethnic states of the early first millennium BC.Using archaeological records, Radner provides insights into the lives of the inhabitants of the kingdom, highlighting the diversity of human experiences in the Assyrian Empire.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56226864595317,"sku":"9780198715900","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198715900_d680cfa6-00f4-4cc0-8451-4a852a0479dd.jpg?v=1786012162"},{"product_id":"9780674047174","title":"Making Civilizations – The World before 600","description":"Distinguished historians of the ancient world analyze the earliest developments in human history and the rise of the first major civilizations, from the Middle East to India and China.   In this volume of the six-part History of the World series, Hans-Joachim Gehrke, a noted scholar of ancient Greece, leads a distinguished group of historians in analyzing prehistory, the earliest human settlements, and the rise of the world’s first advanced civilizations.   The Neolithic period—sometimes called the Agrarian Revolution—marked a turning point in human history. People were no longer dependent entirely on hunting animals and gathering plants but instead cultivated crops and reared livestock. This led to a more settled existence, notably along rivers such as the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Ganges, and Yangzi. Increased mastery of metals, together with innovations in tools and technologies, led to economic specialization, from intricate crafts to deadlier weapons, which contributed to the growth of village communities as well as trade networks. Family was the fundamental social unit, its relationships and hierarchies modeled on the evolving relationship between ruler and ruled. Religion, whether polytheist or monotheist, played a central role in shaping civilizations from the Persians to the Israelites. The world was construed in terms of a divinely ordained order: the Chinese imperial title Huangdi expressed divinity and heavenly splendor, while Indian emperor Ashoka was heralded as the embodiment of moral law.   From the latest findings about the Neanderthals to the founding of imperial China to the world of Western classical antiquity, Making Civilizations offers an authoritative overview of humanity’s earliest eras.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292849418613,"sku":"9780674047174","price":40.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780674047174_d9ac27da-81fe-4715-a4e7-4f4514a4ae32.jpg?v=1786015033"},{"product_id":"first-world-empire-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-ancient-assyrians","title":"First World Empire – The Rise and Fall of the Ancient Assyrians","description":null,"brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499469119861,"sku":"9780691151793","price":27.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"the-road-to-armageddon","title":"The Road to Armageddon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Road to Armageddon: The Assyrian Empire in the Seventh Century BC\u003c\/em\u003e offers a new interpretation of how the first Mesopotamian empire ended. Rather than narrating sudden collapse or gradual decline, it analyses the structural transformation that occurred when imperial coordination thinned while administrative systems continued to function. Focusing on the seventh century BC, the book traces how the Assyrian Empire intensified governance, infrastructure, and imperial ideology at the height of its power. Monumental building at Nineveh, theological centralisation at Assur, covenantal politics, and large-scale infrastructural investment produced unprecedented levels of imperial saturation and optimisation. \u003cbr\u003e Drawing on royal inscriptions, palace reliefs, archival records, and environmental data, the study integrates political history with climate history and systems analysis. It examines the interaction of aridity, geomagnetic instability, seismic volatility, and biological innovation with imperial structures across Mesopotamia and the ancient Middle East. The fall of Nineveh in 612 BC is interpreted not as a sudden rupture but as the culmination of a longer process of structural decoupling. The book proposes Armageddon as a historical category describing the condition in which durability outlasts adaptability, offering a model for understanding how complex empires reach irreversible thresholds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507853959541,"sku":"9781805969310","price":80.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-karen-radner.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}