The First Great Powers

Babylon and Assyria

Arthur Cotterell

$65

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
19 September 2019

History; Middle Eastern history; Ancient history: to c 500 CE

The rediscovery of Assyria in the 1840s transformed Western views on the origins of civilisation. The excavation of Nineveh proved that even the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians together did not constitute the ancient world. These peoples had nothing to do with the beginnings of civilisation on Earth. It was in Mesopotamia that humanity took the first steps on its path towards the society we know today.

The Sumerians inaugurated civilisation itself, but it was the Babylonians and then the Assyrians who fulfilled its potential. Their early experiments in state formation remain fascinating to us today: just like our governments, for a thousand years Babylon and Assyria grappled with the challenges of organising central power, administering distant territories, and engineering social harmony in empires and their cities.

These achievements form one of the momentous episodes in human history; the Mesopotamian invention of writing revolutionised our minds and increased our intellectual possibilities a hundredfold. 'The First Great Powers' is a revelation: of kingship, warfare, society and religion. Here at last we can discover what it meant to be an ancient Mesopotamian living in such an extraordinary world.

By: Arthur Cotterell
Imprint: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781787382114
ISBN 10: 1787382117
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 19 September 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Arthur Cotterell is a prolific historian and author with a special interest in ancient ideas, myths and beliefs. His previous books include The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations; The Penguin Encyclopedia of Classical Civilizations, and The Near East: A Cultural History, also published by Hurst.

Reviews for The First Great Powers: Babylon and Assyria

'A highly readable and engaging account about the world's first imperial powers, and their legacy. Its exciting stories of eminent kings, powerful deities and pivotal events are often full of unexpected turns.' -- Amar Annus, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Religious History at the School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia `A useful book. Undaunted by popular ignorance of the pre-Hellenistic world, Arthur Cotterell promises the general reader an enlightening account of the 2nd-1st millennium BCE Babylonian and Assyrian kingdoms. The extent to which he delivers is remarkable.' -- John Keay, author of Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle East; India: A History; and China: A History