A Guide to the Ancient World

I was with a friend of mine and he decided he wanted to go to a bookstore. I was like alright, I haven't done that in ages. I looked around and asked about coin books but they didn't have any. I went to the world history section and found this book for a whopping $3.50. I was going to get it when I my friend said, I only found three books and so I'll take care of that. They have a buy three, get one free deal there so I ended up getting it for free. lol

I glanced through it of course and it's a reference book of many places in the ancient world, many provinces, ancient civilizations and cities. I didn't read too much of it because I didn't have time. I actually saw Aquileia, Ticinum and many other places. It was even packaged up as new. On Amazon, a new copy is going for $120 top price, average about $80. I got a damn good deal. It's going to be really useful to me in coin collecting, I figure. Especially when I start collecting Roman Provincial coins and other regions.

I read a review and it has nothing about Sumer, Mari, Israel, and rather sparse for some areas, but hey it might be impossible to do it all, right?

 

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Great find! My wife and I have a used bookstore we like to frequent, and we always come away with some interesting reads for cheap. It's getting harder and harder to find brick and mortar bookstores anymore.

 

Nice book, I own a copy.

Quick tip, about everything Michael Grant published was good stuff. Good reads, accurate history, etc. He was the godfather in my mind of mid 20th century ancient history.

 

Notice that the Amazon used section shows many copies that are discarded from libraries. The information in these old books my still be good but I'm not sure I see why anyone would pay $120 for a perfect specimen when you can get a readable copy for under $10. I almost bought the cheapest one but I have been reasonably happy with my current way of finding this information online so I'll leave it for those of you who prefer paper books. At some point you have to decide when it is time to stop buying books just because they are books and start buying books because you need the information that they provide which you would miss otherwise.

 

Is it like an Atlas with help with definitions and names?

Cool Book... I love the feeling of a nice hard book in my hands.

Thanks

 

So for $10, (or even $3.50), you would not buy a book jam packed with pertinent information to ancient coin collecting? Something to read while on the beach, on a vacation, or heaven forbid the power or (worst) internet goes out?

I buy Michael Grant books when I find them cheap. They are good reads, interesting, and if I get them for less than a happy meal I find it money well spent. YMMV.

Btw Doug, how are you supposed to KNOW what info is in a book you might need? You taught me about the RR coin I bought how important it was since it was bragging about the minters own accomplishments. Later on I bought Roman Coins by Kent. That is where that passage came from. If I had not heard it from you first, that paragraph would have COMPLETELY blown my mind and changed how I thought about that coin. The internet is ok, but full of errors and the writing quality is overall not up to snuff with a properly edit manuscript. I simply prefer to learn through both mediums.

 

That's also the same question I asked myself when I was about to purchase the book. I have yet to do any serious reading of the book but I could tell right away that the book was going to be useful to me and so I got it. The price was seriously good. No one could argue with getting it free. Even at $3.50 is a great price. Normally, I don't purchase many books because most of my money go towards coins and I can look up just about anything online. But I'm hoping the book has a lot of information that can't be found online. I need to get a camera and haven't gotten one yet because I spend my budget on coins. One of these days I need to get one.

 

My local paper lists libraries that are selling books. Ive gotten several roman and greek books this way just to read. There has been a few I couldnt get into and when it happens I just take them to a local book store that buys used books, as well as CDs, movies and video games. Its like a pawn shop without the pawn atmosphere.

Sadly never bought any coin books at these sales the libraries have.

 

There are some maps in the beginning of the book. The book is a dictionary in alphabetical order. Think of a place and look it up. I can't say much more than that at this time because I am not at home and the book is setting in the trunk of my friend's car. Maybe Medoraman can tell you more right now. Of course I'm going to talk a little more about it when I get home later tonight.

 

That's exactly what happened to me last year when the power went out in December for about five hours. I was kicking back with a candle and reading aorta, which is a lean version of ERIC II.

 

That's all I need...

Rather interesting concept for a book...

Can't wait to see what else it is about

 

Wow, super-cool looking book, Gil-galad!! .... nice score!!

Hey, my hot wife collects old first editions and other cool books ... maybe, just maybe she'll think that this book is cool too?

=> *rats* ... sadly, I know that she'll catch-on to my plan ... yah, she already played that card when I bought her the men's extra-large Vancouver Canucks jersey!! (man, I thought I was being so stealth)

:whistle:

 

Who knows, maybe she thought you were calling her fat by getting that extra-large jersey. lol

Yeah, it is awesome to own first edition books. Sadly, I don't own any first editions, but I do have 2nd and 3rd editions for books unrelated to coins or history.

 

I agree.

That is a terrific find. I own a copy and I refer to it often. It is well written and incredibly well researched and extremely interesting. Sometimes I open to book to a random page and read about a place that I had never heard of before.

 

Are you sure they allow ancient history books in your new location?

Just kidding my GA friends.

 

Now I am home and I am reading this book. It has several maps at the beginning of the book. They are well done and it looks like most of them have their ancient names instead of modern ones, which is good.

Some reviewer was complaining about Egypt being called Aegyptus, which I think is the right ancient name for that region. So, I just looked it up and read it.

Coins are actually mentioned in this article but to sum it up as briefly as I can; During Roman times Aegyptus was very fertile and produced a lot of grain along with other resources. And thus Aegyptus was briefly usurped many times as evidenced by a great amount of provincial coinage issued at Alexandria.

 

Egypt was the breadbasket of the Empire...

From Egypt, the Emperors gained vast wealth and could afford to artificially lower the price of grain (so the poorer people could afford to eat...)

 

I totally agree with that statement the more that I read from the book. I looked up Nemausus, they do mention the coins issued from there. I looked up a few other places and opened the book randomly as well. I am so glad I got this book.

 

I'll note that for when I go Used Book Shopping

Also,

Any other Authors of Ancient History I should look out for specifically?

And any that I should avoid?


I finally managed to talk my dad into taking me book shopping for a half day... can't wait (I love to read )

 

When anyone asks what's in the book I tell them it describes Rome, Athens, Smyrna, Cairo, Ephesus and other towns and cities in Georgia.