In CIVILIZATIONS, Augusto Angelucci explores the connections and commonalities occurring between diverse, geographically separated ancient cultures and analyzes their influence in the development of modern civilization. In the author's own words: "Although several authors like Jacques, Attali, Brian Fagan, J.P. Mallory, and Richard Rudgley have successfully discussed the history of ancient civilization and their writings have already attracted the attention not only of experts, but of the general public, I believe that the way of life of the Caucasian nomadic shepherded and their contrasts with the stationary farmers, the cultures that flourished during the time gap dividing the incoming of those two civilizations and the influence of the shepherd on the subsequent development of diverging culture have not received the attention they merit nor have been adequately explored or diffused. My study is important because the contemplative and theoretical shepherding approach to life, experienced while lingering waiting for their sheep to graze, led them to the understanding of the basic, religious, philosophical, and moral principles that evolved into our civilization. Concepts like the Ten Commandments, theoretical scientific principles like the Algorithms and monotheistic spirituality could have been conceived only by our Shepherd ancestors. During the long period when Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, Hunter and Gatherers, Shepherds, dominated the world, the farmers did not exist yet. Due to the slower expansion of the agricultural activity which developed only 2,000 years after the domestication of the first animals in the same Caucasus territory, the farmers trailed the shepherds by as much as 10,000 years in their reach of regions distant from the Golden Crescent. The violence, political and philosophical disagreements occurring at present between the descendants of Asian nomads and some Occidental nations (offspring of farming societies) can be construed to be rooted in those ancient divergences and related to their contrasting way of life. I believe that the contemporary public in his desire to understand the origin and development of those conflicts and to find a solution to the problems occurring in the Middle East and Central Asia is more interested than ever in reading events related to this ancient period of our history."