Seeking a source for World Cultures

[Deleted member 2173]

Hello All,

I am in search of a book, perhaps even a textbook, that reviews great cultures/civilizations from the past and present. In creating cultures for my writing, I am looking for inspiration from something from our own. Any website or book referral will be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[ThinkerX]

That be awful broad. Lots and lots of cultures down through the millenia, lots and lots of reading.

Care to narrow it down just a tad? Give some hints as to what your after?

 

[Deleted member 2173]

I am in search of general overviews of cultures, the various primary world powers through the ages. Government overviews, their military set ups. I don't shy from reading, but don't want to hunt down each one. If a resource drives me to further research, great!

 

[ThinkerX]

It be an oldie but goodie...try the old 'time-life' 'Time-frame' series. A sort of world history overview describing many an ancient culture.

 

[Ankari]

Melody from our Google+ Community, shared this link for world building:

Internet History Sourcebooks

 

[Chilari]

I have a book which I bought originally for university, which has a summary of a number of major archaeological sites the world over. It doesn't go deep into the cultures, but it is certainly a valuable starting point for times and places you might not otherwise consider. It is sorted by continent first then by time. I can't remember what it's called or who it's by, but next time I'm at Mum and Dad's house I'll check (because like most of my books, it's still there).

As for more specific books each looking at one culture or place (and remember, one place can be home to myriad cultures over time), I can recommend A History of Ancient Britain by Neil Oliver (currently about 26% of the way through on my Kindle), pretty much anything ever written by Tom Holland, including Persian Fire, Rubicon and In the Shadow of the Sword. There's also the Routledge History of the Ancient World series which is more textbooks for undergrads really, but very good. The series covers the ancient Near East, Greece in several periods (Greece in the Making, The Greek World 480-323BC and The Greek World After Alexander, the latter of which is by Graham Shipley but I don't recall the others) as well as the Roman empire in several periods (including the birth of Rome, the Republic and the Empire I believe).

I have never come across any books that sum up entire cultures in a single chapter, though. How would you even go about writing a book like that? It would require huge amounts of research in diverse fields within history and archaeology, across several different languages - you'd probably need a different author for each chapter. Then you'd have to actually pick which cultures to include and which to ignore, and you'd have to include enough to make it work as a book collecting different cultures, which means each chapter can't be long at all, so summarising all that information into under 10,000 words would be the biggest task.

If all you want is an overview of a culture, you could just try Wikipedia. Not exactly the best source, but it'll give you an idea, and if the page is a good one, some good sources to go to for more information.

 

[Deleted member 2173]

Thank you for the valuable responses. I think I know my next step.

 

[Shockley]

Any good world history atlas will give you a rough overview. If you're willing to drop a good deal of money, a lot of schools have 'Western Civilization' courses, and those textbooks can be great introductions to the Sumerians/Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Roman, Northern Europe, Russia, etc. though they have a glaring flaw in the 'Eastern' department.