In terms of capturing the flow of history and providing an understanding of the times, the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Tacitus and Josephus don't match it. Reading the history of the ancient world gave me a good feel for the amount and quality of ancient records, and a much better appreciation for the quality of the history in in the Bible - I can understand how Sola Scriptura is an entirely defensible position. For good measure, some names keep on appearing, and I kept wondering where I had read them before (Lysander and Timothy, and, oh dear, I forgot the other man). There are lots of names and places, every single one of which is unfamiliar, since the names have changed multiple times since then. It's pretty heavy going though - even heavier than John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland. I read Ussher's Annals of the World from 4004BC to 48AD (in chronological order), and, well, it's a good read.

The further back one goes, the sparser the account is, and the only document that remains standing is. The interesting thing about this is that there are not that many documents.

More than 12,000 footnotes from secular sources and over 2,500 citations from the Bible and the Apocrypha.Ussher's Annals of the World is a blow-by-blow chronological summary of the documents recording the history of the world from creation to 50AD.

Over 10,500 footnotes from the original text that have been updated to references from works in the Loeb Classical Library by Harvard Press.

A reference CD-ROM with colored charts, graphs, timelines, and more.

James Ussher’s literary classic The Annals of the World is a virtual historical encyclopedia that is a must-have for all libraries!

He tells of the rise and fall of great and not-so-great nations and gives accounts of the events that shaped the world. In a chronological presentation covering history from Creation through 70 A.D., James Ussher relates both well- and little-known accounts from the lives of the famous and infamous, including pharaohs, Caesars, kings, conquerors, thieves, pirates, and murderers. It has been translated into modern English for the first time from Latin text originally published in the 1650’s. Considered not only a classic work of literature, but also esteemed for its preciseness and accuracy, The Annals of the World has not been accessible in book form for over 300 years.

Ussher annals of the world