The Far Edges of the Known World

Life Beyond the Borders of Ancient Civilization

By: Owen Rees

Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his bleak and barbarous new surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilization ceased to exist. Our own fascination with the Greek and Roman world has for centuries followed this perspective, shrouding cultures at the far reaches of their influence in myth. But what was it like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?

In The Far Edges of the Known World, ancient historian Owen Rees draws on archaeological excavations to reveal these so-called borders as thriving multicultural spaces. This is where the boundaries of "civilized" and "barbarian" began to dissipate; where traditional rules didn't always apply; where different cultures intermarried; and where nomadic tribes built their own cities. Rees journeys from the sandy caravan routes of Morocco to the freezing winters of the northern Black Sea, from the Red River valley of Vietnam to the rain-lashed forts south of Hadrian’s Wall. Rees introduces us to the everyday people who called the borderlands home. As Rees shows, exchanges of trends, ideas, even religious practices were happening all over the world.

The Far Edges of the Known World offers us a vibrant new lens to see and understand the ancient world.

©2025 Owen Rees (P)2025 Tantor Media

really well researched and performed book on ancient history

it's a shame the publisher hasn't updated the title artwork correctly at the time of this review, this is a solid history book that's falling through the cracks

Interesting information about “edge” cultures

Pretty dry, but given how much of the information came from Herodotus and millennias old fragments, to be expected.