Of all the great ancient civilizations, Egypt has provided the world the most alluring portraits of women. Here, from author Leonard Cottrell, are the fascinating stories of those women - from the legendary beauty, Nefertiti, and Nefertari, the favorite wife of the great Ramesses II; to Tiye, wife of the uxorious, luxury-loving Amenophis III, and the formidable Hatsepshut, the only queen of Egypt to rule as a divine pharaoh in her own right.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, in a few favored areas of the world, humankind mastered the formulas that released it from the Stone Age. For the first time in history, people became civilized. This globe- and time-trotting book vividly describes how a number of major civilizations - the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Khmers, the Etruscans, and more - emerged, thrived, faded, but left a mark on our collective imagination and culture. Memories of some of these civilizations linger in the for...

The Tomb of Tutankhamun. A candle flame flickers on treasures that have lain in darkness for 3,250 years. Lord Carnarvon: "Can you see anything?" Howard Carter: "Yes . . . wonderful things!" Carter did, indeed, stumble on wonderful things. Here is one of the world's most exciting detective stories, told by a master Egyptologist, filled with the adventures of those who first unraveled the mysteries of ancient Egypt. While no one may ever uncover all the secrets behind the...

More than 3,000 years ago, a young man of seventeen named Tutankhamen became pharaoh of Egypt. His reign came toward the end of a vital period in Egypt's history when Thebes was the wealthiest and most splendid city in the world. Great temples soared into the sky, and in the temple workshops, hundreds of craftsmen labored to turn the riches of Egypt into magnificent garments, furniture and houses, ornaments, and weapons for all their heavenly gods and for their earthly god, the pharaoh. In...

Published in the year 2006, Lost Pharaohs is a valuable contrubution to the field of History.

Here is the story of America's oldest - and oddest - civilization, the Olmecs of the southern Mexican jungles. Virtually unknown to archaeologists until the early twentieth century, their true importance is only now being realized and shedding new light on how the Indian peoples of the Americas came to be here.

Here, from New York Times bestselling author Robert Wernick, is the unforgettable story of the Byzantine Empire, which dominated the world for more than 1,000 years. Here, too, are the stories of the extraordinary emperors and generals who brought the empire into being and ultimately presided over its demise. We witness the glittering city of Constantinople from its rise to greatness through its deadly conclusion. Though Byzantium has faded away, its everlasting contributions to our world ...

". . . [A] behind-the-scenes peek at Versailles . . . and an account of a fraught mother-daughter relationship. . . . [A] graceful guide . . ." - The New York Times. This fascinating and poignant collection of letters between Marie Antoinette, the doomed dauphine and future queen of France, and her mother, Maria Theresa, archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, provide a revealing portrait of the legendary queen's tragic life and the age in which she lived. Beginning in 177...

Here, from American Heritage, is the human, vital story of America's beginnings - from the journeys of early explorers and the founding of the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies to the French and Indian Wars and victory in the War of Independence.

Some of the world's foremost historians - from Morris Bishop and J. Christopher Herold to H. R. Trevor-Roper and Barbara Tuchman - tell the stories of the greatest showdowns of all time. Here, Richard the Lionheart faces off against the sultan Saladin, Pope Leo I against Attila the Hun, Spanish Explorer Hernán Cortés against Aztec King Moctezuma II, and Emperor Napoleon against Russia's Alexander I. The collection ends with the 1904 standoff between President Teddy Roosevelt and Moroccan d...

Most of us still know less about Africa's past and peoples than we do about the continent's wild animals. And what we do know is colored by romance - safaris and treks and camel caravans, Solomon's mine and Tutankhamun's curse, the shores of Tripoli and the snows of Kilimanjaro. Yet the ancestor of all humankind may have lived in Africa. The world's longest-lived, literate civilization was African. Through the ages, great civilizations rose and fell in what was once called "darkest" Africa...

In the eighth century, The Vikings, the water-borne warriors of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, conquered much of the British Isles. They pillaged the coast of France, pushed inland to sack Paris, and seized Normandy. Sweeping south down the great rivers of central Europe, they overwhelmed the Slavs of Russia, captured Kiev, and clashed with the people of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. In all this, the Vikings took untold treasures, but they weren't just barbarians, cont...