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Sources

METHOD

Nothing here is invented. Every chapter draws on established archaeological and historical scholarship rather than on a single retelling of someone else's summary.

Key works by period

These are the main books behind each period. They are a starting point, not a complete bibliography, and editions may differ from the ones listed.

Prehistory

• Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn, Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (Thames and Hudson). The textbook behind the dating methods and kinds of evidence used in the prehistory chapters.
• Clive Gamble, The Palaeolithic Settlement of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1986). How early humans spread across Europe and how they lived there.
• Steven Mithen, After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC (2003). The end of the Ice Age and the changes that led people towards farming.

Ancient Egypt

• Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss and David A. Warburton (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Chronology (Brill, 2006). The reference for the dates of the pharaohs on this site.
• Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt (Routledge, 1999). The first dynasties, from Narmer to Den.
• Ian Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2000). A general history of Egypt from prehistory to the Roman period.
• Günter Hölbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire (Routledge, 2001). The later periods of Egypt, not yet covered on this site.

Middle Ages

• Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford University Press, 2005). The move from the Roman world to the early medieval kingdoms.
• Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (Princeton University Press, 1993). Expansion, settlement and the growth of medieval Europe.
• Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (2004). The crusade as seen from both sides.

Early Modern Period and Modern Era

• Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1988). How gunpowder and the state changed warfare and power.
• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962). The French Revolution and the rise of industrial society.
• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). The imperial and industrial world before the First World War.

Contemporary Era

• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 (Michael Joseph, 1994). Two world wars, the Cold War and decolonization in one account.
• Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (Allen Lane, 2017). The Cold War as a global story, not only a contest between two superpowers.

History doesn't hold still

A date that looked solid ten years ago can move after a new excavation or a better isotope reading, and this site tries to keep up rather than freeze the picture at launch. Where specialists disagree - and in prehistory, they often do - that disagreement is part of the text, not smoothed over for the sake of a tidier sentence.

Corrections are welcome

If something here doesn't match the current consensus in a field, or a specific claim looks wrong, that is genuinely useful to know. See the contact page to flag it.