Vanished Civilizations

In this inviting picture book, Jean-Paul Barbier, world-renowned historian and founder of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, recounts the moving and glorious history of, among others, the people who built Babylon, the Benin Kingdom, the Pyramids of Egypt and the statues of Easter Island. Mankind, at every crossroads in its development, at every latitude and in every continent, has been continually confronted with challenges. Here, Barbier looks at the way these challenges were met, recounting a past in which the grandiose, the mysterious and the human are intertwined. For the first time, a single volume presents all of these "vanished civilizations" in a synthesis which plunges us deep into the worlds of the past. Through beautiful and lavish photographs, this book invites you to discover such mysteries as the world of the Etruscans, the art of the Celts, the Olmec and the dawn of Mexican art, the grandeur and decadence of the Maya, and the mystical North American Indians.