Ancient Egypt
The scale of ancient Egyptian history is overwhelming. Americans (North and South) wrestle with the consequences of five hundred years of invasion, conquest, and settlement. Europeans argue over what delineates different phases of their history (modern, the rise of the nation-state, phases of the Renaissance, medieval, post-Roman, and so on). Well, that gets you back only 1500 years. Classicists pride their discipline on another thousand years. Egyptians look on, bemused. They go back 6000 years without breathing hard. Ancient Egypt (a deep and long category, obviously) represents a civilization that still fascinates us. Think pharaohs, pyramids, mummies, hieroglyphs, the Sphinx, the Nile, "King Tut." Children and adults love such stuff. I debated with myself whether to be a purist on Ancient Egypt and end my listings with Alexander the Great's conquest and the great era of the Ptolemaic dynasty, but you would miss so much in those 275 years leading up to the pragmatic and unimaginative Romans building their empire on Egyptian grain. I wanted to include the Pharos lighthouse, Alexandria and its library, Cleopatra. So I did, and I will. This page, these offerings, like the rest of Whistlestop, will be carefully curated and vetted and supplemented as I find and list interesting items.
Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction
Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction
- Tells the history of Assyria from city state to empire, from the early 2nd millennium BC to the end of the 7th century BC
- Develops a nuanced picture of Assyrian culture and society by using a mosaic of case studies
- Provides insights into the lives of various inhabitants of the kingdom of Assyria
- Introduces the reader to the primary sources to demonstrate the ways they can be used to make an ancient unfamiliar civilization come alive
- Examines Assyria's role as a pathfinder for subsequent empires
- Part of the bestselling Very Short Introductionsseries - millions of copies sold worldwide