The new six-volume edition of World History summarizes the work of historians over the past decades. This volume covers the history of the emergence of man and society, the formation of the first civilizations. It offers a comprehensive consideration of the civilizations of the Ancient East, the ancient world and the periphery, their typological community and specificity with special attention to cultural and historical aspects. The main idea underlying the concept of this volume is the universality of trends in the development of the ancient world with a variety of concrete-historical forms of their manifestation. For historians and a wide range of readers.