The Persians were unlikely successors to the Assyrians and Babylonians, a fringe people of no particular importance, until Cyrus the Great became the most successful conqueror the world had ever seen. He built an empire stretching from Central Asia to the borders of Egypt, the Aegean to the Persian Gulf, and laid the foundations for a state that would last for 200 years.
Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge. And check out Patrick's new review podcast of the TV series Rome: https://bit.ly/PWrome
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What is the State?
Mary Prendergast on Ancient Africa
The Green Sahara and African Neolithics
Africa and the Many Cradles of Humanity
Who Were the Human Sacrifices in Shang China? Interview with Dr. Christina Cheung
The Genetic Origins of Indigenous Americans: Interview with Professor Jennifer Raff
The Shang Dynasty, Oracle Bones, and the Roots of Chinese History
The Complicated World of the Bronze Age Near East: Interview with Aaron Burke
The Dawn of History in China
Encore: How Latin Became the Romance Languages
The Rise and Fall of China’s First States
Li Liu on the Rise of States in China
Hittites, Trojans, and the Late Bronze Age World: Interview with Professor Trevor Bryce
The Rise of the Late Bronze Age Empires: The Hittites, Mittani, and Assyrians
Hammurabi’s World - The Near East in the Age of Fragmentation
Mike Parker Pearson on Stonehenge and British Prehistory
Stonehenge
Bronze Age Europe
Writing a New History of the Middle Ages: Interview with Dan Jones on Powers and Thrones
The Hyksos - Foreign Kings in Ancient Egypt: Interview with Dr. Anna-Latifa Mourad
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The History of Byzantium
In Our Time
The Ancients
Dan Snow’s History Hit
The Rest Is History