The goal of this book is to describe each subject that pertains to an area in ancient civilization in 100 words. Each page has an illustration, a topic, and a one-hundred-word description. The illustrations are good and the one-hundred-word descriptions are mostly concise.
The book is divided into 5 sections, or five civilizations: Egypt, Phoenician, Minoan, Greece, Roman. The subjects explained in 100 words range from people, places, tools, language, and other variations. As an example, here are the content pages for Egypt: Nile, Mummies, Pharaohs, Amulet, Scribes, Sphinx, Osiris, Hieroglyphs, Cubit, Pets, Pyramids, Shabtis, Beer, Hatshepsut, Corvée, Vizier, Papyrus, Hittites, Tutankhamun, Cosmetics, Ra, Ramesses II, Nilometer, Horus, Rosetta, Cleopatra.
There is a two-page introduction that explain 5 symbols that relate to each ancient civilization. In order to note which subject falls under multiple civilizations, you must know the symbol or flip back to the beginning to match the symbol to the civilization. For example, the page on “Olives” is under the Greek section. However, at the top there are four symbols which indicate that olives were also used by not only Greece, but three other civilizations as well. So, if you do not look symbols at the top of the page then you might be misled to think that olives were only recognized by the Greeks. Several pages have more than one symbol.
The ancient civilizations are categorized in order of oldest to newest: Egyptians (p. 8-33), Phoenicians (p.34-37), Minoans (38-40), Greece (p. 41-73), and Romans (p.74-107). The selection on Minoans and Phoenicians is notably shorter than the other descriptions. While we do not of course have as much information on these civilizations in comparison to their counterparts in this book, I was disappointed an effort was not made to include more than 2-4 pages on them. There are the major settlements, agriculture, art, Minoan copper, Phoenician origin theories, and so much more that could have been included. Also, the term “Hellenization” was not mentioned in this book either which was a major part of ancient Greek culture. I understand that everything cannot be included, but it felt imbalanced.
There were quite a few discrepancies in this book. Having pet animals is only attributed to the Egyptian civilization. Calendars are only credited to being used by Egypt and Roman civilizations. A major inconsistency was the noting of slaves. Under Egypt’s category on page 22, it was stated that new research shows Egypt possibly didn’t have slaves but used a system called corvée. Flip to page 71 that explains the subject “Slaves” for ancient civilizations, and it provides the symbols that indicate only Roman and Greeks utilized slavery, not Egypt. Fast-forward to page 94 under the subject “Liberti” and the first sentence states, “Good news for some slaves in ancient Rome. Unlike those in ancient Egypt and Greece, they could be freed by their owners in an act called manumission.”
At the end of the book, it concludes with a short timeline and a simple glossary and index. I did not find the map at the end of the book favorable.
I think with some editing, this would be an amazing book that will allow primary and middle grades a clear and comprehensive overview of each ancient civilization. Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for a copy. Opinions are my own.