by Jon Lackman | 29 October 2007 | Ancient, Books
If you don’t specialize in the art of the Ancient Near East, but need to teach it in surveys, you know how hard it is to find good general histories of the period. In a recent issue of East and West (55:1-4), Nicola Laneri reviews Marc van De Mieroop’s A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC:
How is it possible to write about [this subject] without creating a book that is a simple list of names and historical events? Marc van De Mieroop has been able to overcome such a challenge, evident in this magnificent volume which includes all the historical events that took place in the Ancient Near East … the language used in the book is very clear and simple, but without becoming a banal analysis and interpretation … Van De Mieroop’s knowledge of ancient languages as well as anthropological approaches to the analysis and interpretation of archaeological data furnishes the book with a deep and broad vision.
Laneri also notes that
as a result of political unrest in Iraq dating back to the first Gulf War in 1990, no new archaeological excavations have been underway since that time in the state that holds the greatest number of Ancient Mesopotamian sites; subsequently, van De Mieroop’s book is based on archaeological data from the fundamental Iraqi area that has remained unchanged since before this period.
