Best ancient mesopotamia history books according to redditors

Since we've been waiting for nearly a day for answers in this thread (which is about some of my favorite topics to study), I'm going to list some factors I've read about. I know the mods are strict here, but I'll cite sources for every one of these factors, which I hope will count for something.

• Mesopotamia was much more geographically diverse. When we talk about "ancient Egypt," in terms of geography, we're really just talking about that narrow strip of arable land on the banks of the Nile. The vast majority of Egypt's population seem to have made their living by farming and fishing along that narrow strip, from prehistoric times all the way to the Roman period (and, to some extent, even into the present day). All along that strip of land, yearly floods and other seasonal factors exhibited similar patterns, making it relatively easy to plan harvests, centralize stockpiles and organize distributions of food and other resources all along the Nile. In fact, even nearby cultures - like the Kerma Culture and the Kingdom of Kush - which were genetically, linguistically and (to some extent) religiously distinct from Egypt, also made their livings from the Nile, which may be one reason why Egypt was able to conquer and control these kingdoms at various points in its history. Mesopotamia, on the other hand, was a forested plain bordered by swamps in the south, mountains to the north and east, and deserts to the west. From prehistoric times onward, this geographic diversity seems to have brought people with widely divergent cultures, beliefs and ways of life into conflict over the same pieces of land, where much of the agriculture was achieved by damming and building aqueducts from certain points on the Tigris and Euphrates. While one city reaped a bountiful harvest, a city just up the river might be starving - because when one city enjoyed a plentiful water supply, it was probably at the expense of a city downriver. In fact, the first recorded war in history was fought between the city-states of Lagash and Umma, over just such a water supply.
  
  
• Egypt was unified much earlier. While there's some evidence that Egyptian cities each worshiped their own gods during the prehistoric and proto-historic periods, many processes of linguistic and cultural unification seem to have taken place much earlier than in Mesopotamia - probably sometime between 6,000 and 3,000 BCE. In other words, Egypt most likely did go through an extensive period of immigration, city-state rules, warfare and unification - we just know very little about this process because most of it occurred before the invention of writing. All the large-scale cross-cultural migrations and wars were most likely wrapped up by the time of the pharaoh Menes (possibly the same person as Narmer) around 3,000 BCE. Mesopotamia, on the other hand, was still receiving massive immigrations of foreign peoples as late as the 500s BCE, and even later. This region was arguably truly unified for the first time under the Neo-Assyrian Empire throughout the 800s BCE, and was brought under more scrupulous (and less harsh) administrative control by the Achaemenid Persian Empire from the 500s to 300s BCE. So in that sense, Mesopotamia and Egypt didn't "start at similar times" - Egypt's processes of immigration and unification began much earlier, and were largely completed by the time Mesopotamian city-states really started waging war - and the new invention of writing was able to document those processes.
  
  
  
• Mesopotamia was more culturally and politically diverse. Because of these ongoing waves of immigration, there was a lot of trade, warfare, and cultural mingling going on from very early periods in Mesopotamia - and each group seems to have held onto certain cultural elements (languages, clothing and grooming styles) well into the historical period. Although groups like the Sumerians and Akkadians lived in the same cities and intermarried, they were each proud of their distinct languages and styles of dress. Meanwhile, other groups like the Elamites (based in what's now Iran, though not an Indo-Iranian people), the Kassites, the Hittites, the Assyrians, and many others, swept in from the geographical fringes at various times, sometimes ruling for a few hundred years; sometimes conquering, falling, and reconquering across thousands of years. Even the famous Babylonian king Hammurabi was the descendant of a foreign Amorite conqueror. While Egypt certainly fought with the peoples on its borders - most notably the Libyans (Libu), the Kushites, the Hittites and the Sea Peoples - and these peoples sometimes conquered and ruled Egypt (the 25th dynasty of Nubian Kushite pharaohs; the 23rd dynasty of Libyan Meshwesh pharaohs, and of course the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty), Egyptian culture seems to have conquered these peoples as much as they conquered Egypt: the invaders seem to have adopted Egyptian fashions and religion, and followed the basic protocols of pharaonic rule. Many of them even seem to have adopted the Egyptian language - except for the Ptolemaic rulers, who (with the exception of Cleopatra) insisted on speaking only Greek at court.
  
  As with many distinctions in history, these aren't cut-and-dried. Egypt actually did exhibit quite a lot of cultural, political and religious variation throughout the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms; large swathes of Mesopotamia were unified under single rulers (Sargon of Akkad, Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi, for example) for a century or two, here and there; and remarkably diverse groups of people (Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites and many others) seem to have lived in relative peace in many Mesopotamian cities.
  
  But the short answer to your question, based on sources I've read, is that the factors above are some of the most commonly cited reasons why Mesopotamia is perceived as more politically unstable than Egypt.
  
  Sources:
  
  
• Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East by Michael Roaf
  
• Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians by Virginia Schomp
  
• The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character by Samuel Noah Kramer
  
• Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek
  
• The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest by Seton Lloyd
  
• Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

This has always intrigued me after seeing movies and television often showing ancient soldiers suffering many wounds but surviving cause they're the hero or something. I actually found a book that's all about ancient man and medicine.

Man and Wound in the Ancient World

It's on Google Books too: Link

> If the data on wound mortality and infection are combined, a rough statistical profile of the causes of wound mortality for the ancient soldier can be produced. Of a hundred soldiers wounded in action, 13.8 percent would die of shock and bleeding within two to six hours of being wounded. Another 6 percent would contract tetanus, and 80 percent of them would die within three to six days. Five percent would see their wounds turn gangrenous, and 80-100 percent would die within a week. Approximately 1.7 percent would contract a septicemic infection, and 83-100 percent would succumb within six to ten days. On average, then, 25 percent of wounded soldiers would die of their wounds within a week to ten days.

It also mentions that general health was better between 2500-323 BC and then didn't improve much until WWI. That's a long time. Also,

>Of every one hundred children born [in ancient times], half died before age five. Of the fifty survivors, twenty-seven died before age twenty-five; of the twenty-three survivors, nine died by age thirty-five; of the remaining fourteen, six lived to age fifty; and only three lived to see sixty.

Even if your lifespan could span 1000 years, it could still be ended just as quickly as if you lived a shorter life due to disease, wounds, and lack of medical knowledge. I think it would be safe to say that it would be an impossibility to be born in the ancient world and actually survive for 1000 years.

Ancient Iraq is the generally accepted go-to book about ancient Mesopotamia, and I recommend it highly.

[Civilizations of Ancient Iraq](http://www.amazon.ca/Civilizations-Ancient-Iraq-Benjamin-Foster/dp/0691149976/ref=sr_1_2? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334360769&sr=1-2) is more recent, less comprehensive but still quite good.

The End of the Bronze Age is a bit more scholarly, but is a great description of this fascinating event.

Hope this helps!

Sure. In no specific order:

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4


None of these are specifically Biblical history, as I'm sure you'll quickly gather. To fully grasp the Old Testament, however, there are a few important areas that one must be strong in (in my humble opinion, that is): Ancient Near East history, and the New Testament, and a general understanding of Judaism and its individual history.

It's difficult to pick out specific books on such a broad topic, but here are a few of my favourites:

• Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London
  
  
• Lynda Nead, Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London
  
  
• Rohan McWilliam, The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Sensation
  
  Judith Fladers is also pretty fun to read when it comes to social and cultural history - her stuff is aimed at a popular audience (she's a journalist rather than an academic), but it's generally pretty well-researched. She's written books on the Victorian home, leisure, and the period's fascination with murder.
  
  If you're really desperate you could also take a look at my PhD thesis! It's about newspapers, jokes, slang, and transatlantic cultural relations in the nineteenth century. It's available to download free from my blog. I've also got a couple of articles on transatlantic jokes that you might be able to access - links in my profile.

His wife Francoise has been running the place since Lawrence passed away. I'm fairly certain this is still one of the most reputable and caring animal reserves around. It's definitely on my bucket list.

Incidentally Francoise has a followup book to The Elephant Whisperer called An Elephant In My Kitchen coming out in November. And if you haven't you must read Lawrence's other two books, Babylon's Ark and The Last Rhino. They're both great and there's some more bits about the elephants in them.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

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Look into comparative mythology. The first book I read on the subject (some 30 years ago) was The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. It is a dated work, published in 1853, and comes from a decidedly Christian (Protestant) perspective, but it is meticulously referenced, and IMO, well worth the read.

Second, I would look into the works of Zechariah Sitchin - beginning with The Twelfth Planet. Some may disagree with the conclusions that Sitchin hints at, but he does a marvelous job of framing various comparative mythologies of the ancient world.

Jordan Maxwell is another "controversial" author who has done extensive research on comparative mythology, and has several books and youtube videos that are quite fascinating.

But don't take their word (or mine) for anything. Read the material yourself and do your own research to test whether the issues they raise are valid.

Enjoy!

You need to dig out its Hellenistic-Latin-Arab roots. Here's a list of the most important classics:

http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Ancient-Babylon-P-G-Maxwell-Stuart-ebook/dp/B00AY1Z8Y8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418994883&sr=8-3&keywords=history+of+astrology

http://www.amazon.com/Manilius-Astronomica-Classical-Library-English/dp/0674995163/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418994991&sr=1-19&keywords=classics

http://www.amazon.com/Carmen-Astrologicum-Dorotheus-Sidon/dp/193330314X/ref=sr_1_88?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418995154&sr=1-88&keywords=classics

http://www.amazon.com/Ptolemys-Tetrabiblos-Quadripartite-Vol-Influence/dp/B008742OMS/ref=sr_1_100?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418995188&sr=1-100&keywords=classics

http://www.amazon.com/Introductions-Traditional-Astrology-Mashar-al-Qabisi-ebook/dp/B00AUXSIEC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418996163&sr=1-2&keywords=introduction

Must haves.

dan is what he calls “addicted to context”...

ever read Richard A. Gabriel?.. tremendously interesting historian.. picked this one up, highly recommend.

A classic from my undergraduate days. I assume it's dated.

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Iraq-Third-Penguin-History/dp/014012523X

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0061379131/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1397494869&sr=8-1, I'd a good break down of ancient gods, civilizations, and theories on representing gods.

The 12th Planet

http://www.amazon.com/Twelfth-Planet-Book-Earth-Chronicles/dp/0061379131

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYmkophY2Pk - Audio version of the book linked above.

http://www.amazon.com/Twelfth-Planet-Book-Earth-Chronicles/dp/0061379131

Zecharia Sitichen's 12th planet is awesome. Even if wrong, is very fun read. But maybe he was right?

Also, maybe NASA has known about this for a very long time and they sent out the Pioneer craft to this planet??