World’s Story Volume III: Egypt, Africa and Arabia

This third volume of Tappan's monumental series traverses some of humanity's oldest and most influential civilizations. Here lie the Egypt of pharaohs and philosophers, the trading kingdoms of West Africa, the Cape Colony's tangled origins, and the Arabian Peninsula where prophet and poet reshaped the ancient world. But what makes this collection singular is its method. Rather than dry chronological recitation, Tappan weaves together primary sources, passages from ancient chroniclers, fragments of lost epics, vivid poetry, and descriptions of art that bring dead worlds into startling focus. The reader doesn't merely learn about these civilizations; they hear them speak in their own voices, across millennia. This is history as cultural conversation, an early twentieth-century attempt to understand where we came from by listening to those who were there first.