A sweeping history of ancient exploration, the first full-scale account in over a centuryOdysseus. Jason and the Argonauts. Heracles. Greek mythology is full of tales of heroes setting out for the unknown. Such tales reflected and instilled a sense of confidence in the Greeks as they explored the limits of their world. Their voyages of discovery (and conquest), most dramatically under Alexander the Great, are but the most famous examples of ancient exploration. These expeditions were built on earlier voyages, notably those by Bronze Age Egyptians and Mesopotamians, and led to further global travel, trade, and warfare among the Romans, Persians, Scythians, Indians, and Chinese. To the Ends of the Earth is the first modern history of ancient exploration in over a century. Ranging from the Mediterranean Bronze Age to the third century CE, it reveals long-distance, explorative campaigning to be more than a mere ephemeral phenomenon of ancient history. Rather, exploration was, and still is, an integral and driving force of economic, political, and cultural development. Through the prisms of trade, travel, and politics, Raimund J. Schulz provides a sweeping, 1000-year history of all of Eurasia. He traces the pathways and periods of ancient discovery--from the North Atlantic to China, from the Russian steppes to the Sahara--understanding these journeys not as isolated actions, but within their political, military, economic, and cultural contexts. This book explains why adventurers, traders, colonisers, generals, and envoys set out over and over to explore new horizons, the intentions that guided them, and the long-term consequences of their discoveries. By the third century CE remote civilizations were connected as never before and the foundational dynamics of these voyages later contributed to European overseas exploration in the Early Modern Age. To the Ends of the Earth not only offers a fresh look at the ancient world, but also significantly contributes to an understanding of premodern world history by releasing Greco-Roman antiquity from its relative isolation and placing it in a global context.
Introduction, or, An American in Carthage 1. A World on the Move: Ancient Rulers, Traders, and Heroes 2. Apollo's Disciples: Exploration in the Seventh and Sixth Centuries BCE 3. Beyond the Mediterranean: Carthage and Persia Explore Africa and India 4. New Horizons on Land and at Sea 5. Investigating the East and South: Advances in the Hellenistic Era 6. The Romans Explore the North 7. The Globalisation of Eurasia in the First and Second Century CE 8. How the Old World Came to the New: Ancient Knowledge and Early Modern Expansion Epilogue Acknowledgements Timeline Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations Index of Names Index of Places
Raimund J. Schulz is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bielefeld and an award-winning author. Robert Savage is the author of Hölderlin after the Catastrophe and the translator of many books, including Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger's Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time.
Reviews for To the Ends of the Earth: How Ancient Conquerors, Explorers, Scientists, and Traders Connected the World
"Exploration of ""new worlds"" did not start with Columbus. In To the Ends of the Earth, Schulz offers a compelling, vivid account of those earlier journeys and the connectivity they brought across unfathomable distances and cultural divides. Following the trail of epic enterprises, technological innovations, and obscure knowledge-chains of Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, and Romans, among others, Schulz' history decenters the Classical powerhouses and expands in every cardinal direction beyond colonial and imperial networks * Carolina López-Ruiz, Author of Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean * To the Ends of the Earth is a wonderful romp through the history of Greco-Roman exploration, revealing an important and underappreciated aspect of the ancient Mediterranean world. From Phoenician sailors to the campaigns of Alexander and the wonders described by Pytheas in the north Atlantic, Schulz reminds us how new knowledge was created, and what the impacts of newly encountered places were on the Greco-Roman world. This is a very well written and serious book, and a complete joy to read. I learned something on every single page. * J. G. Manning, Author of The Open Sea * To the Ends Of the Earth is a synthetic and incisive discussion of why exploration took place in environments where leaving home would be a difficult and often fatal proposition. The chronological scope of the book is impressive and includes issues of why exploration seemed to come to a stop in late Roman times and then began again in the Renaissance. There is no recent book available that covers the broad range of exploration found in Schulz' book. * Duane W. Roller, Author of Empire of the Black Sea *"
