Ancient Inventions

by Peter James and Nick Thorpe

Book Overview

From Greek steam engines to Roman fire engines . . . Aztec chewing gum to Etruscan false teeth . . . earthquake detectors in China to electric batteries in Iraq . . . stone-age brain surgery to middle-age hand grenades . . . here's a lively and fascinating look at the genuine wonders of the past.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345364767
• ISBN13: 9780345364760
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 2.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 7.8" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Well Researched & Very Readable

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Many "modern conveniences" have analogs in the ancient past. This book gives us a good reminder that our ancestors were not fools, & that Human needs do not greatly change. L. Sprague De Camp fans take note--you if you liked "The Ancient Engineers" you will enjoy this. The Ancient Engineers If you like this book, try the De Camp book listed above.

Maybe We Don't Have a Patent After All

Frequently I pause to marvel at something...something that we can do now that we couldn't do just ten years ago. Most often these things have something to do with computers or medicine. _Ancient Inventions_ reminds me that a lot of things that we assume to be recent are really quite old. The ancient Egyptians used antibiotics contained in moldy bread to heal wounds. Maybe we moderns did not think of the idea first after all; maybe we don't have a patent. And then there are some ideas that the ancients had that we moderns may have not thought of. We have bull fighting, but how about bull leaping? An ancient Greek picture shows a *female* athlete who has grabbed a bull by the horns, done a somersault over the bull's head onto its back, and then jumped off behind the bull. Move over bunji jumping._Ancient Inventions_ is a fascinating and easy to read book. Its twelve chapters cover just about every aspect of life from medicine to military technology to urban life (including plumbing) to communications. It is 620 just right pages for people who enjoy knowing about the discoveries and developments of times past.

Fun for the lay "historian"

Ever wonder where the stuff you think of as everything came from? James & Thorpe have used a good range of experts and a fair amount of book reading to help them create an entertaining look at where ideas, activities, and objects come from. In 12 categories ranging from medicine to sex to sports, they look at 102 subcategories. The general introduction to the book explains why they've tackled this topic and each chapter has its own introduction that explains the categories and the reasons for including each subcategory. I wouldn't go as far as to call it "academic" or "scholarly" but its nice to see someone popularizing the periods of human history I love in a way that I can support.

Fun book on the history of "things"

This was an entertaining volume on the history of some of the things we think of as "modern" inventions. Many of them were already known to me from other sources, where I came across them in preparing for my MA in history. Inventions like "Greek fire" the first flame thrower, the "Bagdad battery" a possible device for electroplating, and the early trepinning surgeries are some of those familiar to me. More surprising was the cataract surgery and plastic surgery to repair nose and ears practiced by the Romans and probably invented even earlier in India or Babylon. This is a great book for anyone who wonders "Who was the first to..."

Excellent reference and fun to read

This book is describes ancient inventions and construction projects predating 1492. It is well researched, documented, and illustrated.There is an assumption with some that earlier humans were rustic simpletons. This book dispels that notion. It describes everything from the mundane (wine, cosmetics), to the grandiose (an early Suez Canal), to the dangerous (trepanning, i.e. drilling holes in one's head as an early form of surgery), to the practical (mills, weapons, paper). One of the strangest discoveries is of a cave that is made to resemble hell.In addition to the expected inventions from Egypt, Greece, and Rome inventions from all over the world are represented including ones from South America, China, and ancient Scythia the area where modern Ukraine is found. Inventions from that area include the earliest form of shelter (mammoth bone huts), domestication of horses, the earliest melodic musical instruments (flutes), maps, trousers, jewelry, ovens, houses, soap, and saunas (in which hashish was thrown on hot stones).This is a feel-good book. It documents the creativity and imagination of humans.