I start this book as the first one of a reading project of ancient history because the ancient near east civilizations are the oldest ones we know. I’m glad that I finished it before the new year. Seems to be a good start of the project for the next year.

There are two things that prompted me to start such a reading project. One is from the last book I read 万古江河, a book that has an overview of the Chinese history but also compares it with some other ancient civilizations at the same time. The book was very brief even on the Chinese history, so it inspired me to know more and build a systematic history view from the beginning.

Another one is from the experience of visiting the British Museum at the end of last year. I saw lots of Assyrian objects there but only had very little knowledge about it other than perhaps a chapter of the history textbook in school. I don’t even have a concrete concept of the geography of the near east even though it’s still a very important area till today. It made me realize while I’m very interested in ancient history, there is such a big gap of my knowledge about the earliest civilization in human history. So here I am, start to read from the earliest human civilization.

This book is a very good overview of the ancient near east history. I feel like I got a good introduction with little background. Even though I cannot remember everything it talks about, it’s never the goal. I have a good concept of the important time periods and historical geography after reading it, and to me that’s good enough.