The Wisdom of the Ancients
Four Ideas that Changed the World
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Buy Now for £11.89
-
Narrated by:
-
Kent Klineman
-
By:
-
H.A. Drake
This book is about four cornerstones of modern thought that were put in place by people living in the ancient Mediterranean world. It covers approximately 2,000 years in time (from ca. 1000 BCE to 1000 CE) and spatially moves from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq), through Greece and Rome, to the new Germanic states growing in what is now western Europe.
The four ideas, as author H. A. Drake proposes, are monotheism, the idea that there is only one god, not many; individual rights, the idea that there is a limit to what the state can order us to do; naturalized citizenship, the idea that the full rights and privileges of citizenship can be extended to people who have no birthright to them; and creation of a standard by which to judge the performance of states. It is easy, now, to take these ideas for granted. By discussing these ideas in their historical context with clarity and wit, The Wisdom of the Ancients reminds listeners how preposterous they were originally and how different our world would be if they had not taken hold.