Reconstructing western civilization

"These essays reveal ancient history through a lens ironic, skeptical, playful. While textbooks numb curiosity and stifle humor, Barbara Sher Tinsley humorously confronts the past, encouraging readers to enjoy exploring the tragicomic aspects of men - and women - from Paleolithic through early Christian times. Readers get a chronological account from Gilgamesh to the rise of Christianity. Intolerance and spirituality, science and irrationality, sex and gender, poverty and greed, hold mirrors to a different past than any textbook provides. Here, history is thought provoking, relevant, and often hilarious."--Jacket.