I've always been a fan of history. The old adage that those who forget are doomed to repeat it always fascinated me. Way back in 1994 my sister bought me a book: A History of Knowledge: The Pivotal Events, People, and Achievements of World History.

This book has been one of my favorites since then. History tends to be viewed as boring or dry. In fact if you ask any adult today who Copernicus was or Galileo, most can at least tell you something about those people, but what do they know of the actual influences these two men had? Or there fellow countrymen?

Let's consider a more "timely" subject: Atoms.

Anyone know who Democritus is? Would you be shocked to learn he actually "discovered" Atomic Theory sometime after his birth in 460bc?

"Every material thing, Democritus believed, is mad up of finite number of discrete particles, or atoms.." pg 39

You see the Greeks essentially gave us science. Oh, you might read about that in 4th grade science class (or whatever grade it gets a one sentence mentioning in), but do you really understand what that means? Reading through just the 1st hundred pages of A History of Knowledge you get not only the facts, but the threads that tie each piece together. History becomes this mosaic of people, places and times, each one taking a part of another and pushing it along to present day.

The Romans with their codified laws are really what gave us our legal system in this country. Oh sure we don't have the same laws, but the Romans endless striving for law and general spread of law throughout the entire Roman empire still influences us today. Did you learn that in your normal history classes? I didn't.

It's also interesting, to me, how much the Greeks influenced the Romans. It was through the Greeks that the Romans spread education. Romans excelled at Law and Administration but seemed to flounder in science. In fact the society seemed to push back against technological change unless it was directed towards Administration. One example cited is that of a Greek named Hero of Alexandria who invented a kind of Steam Engine in the the first century AD.

Get the book here and let me know what you think. This is no run-of-the-mill history book. This is one that will fascinate you for years and keep you coming back for more.