The Ancient History of the Near East from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Salamis

by Harry Reginald Hall

Pyrrhus Press specializes in bringing books long out of date back to life, allowing today’s readers access to yesterday’s treasures.
This is a history of the Middle East during antiquity, from the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians to the Battle of Salamis during the Persian Wars.
From the preface:
“IN this book I have endeavoured to tell the story of the ancient history of the Near East within the limits of a single volume. Those who know the great works of Maspero and of Meyer will realize that in order to effect this great compression has been necessary, and will guess that many matters of great interest have had to be treated more cursorily than I would have wished. But, while writing as succinctly as possible, I have of set purpose refused to sacrifice too much on the altar of brevity, and have aspired to make the book readable as well as moderate in size.
Of all regions of the earth probably the Near East has had and will have the greatest interest for us Europeans, for from it sprang our civilization and our religion.
There took place the mingling of the Indo-European from the North with the Mediterranean of the South, which produced the culture, art, and law of the Greeks and Romans; and there, on the Semitic verge of Asia, the home of religious enthusiasms from the beginning, arose the Christian Faith. And if the Near East has from the first seen the mingling of the ideas of the East and West, it has also seen their secular struggle for mastery, the first phase of which ended at Salamis, when the Aryan invader made good his footing in the Mediterranean world, and threw back the Asiatics from Greece, now become the most eastern of western lands instead of the most westerly of the eastern. The second phase ended with Arbela and the complete triumph of the West. At the end of the third, Kossovo-polje and Constantinople registered the return of the pendulum, which swung its weight from east to west as far as Vienna. Then it swung back, and the end of the fourth phase seems to be approaching as I write, when Bulgars and Greeks are hammering at the gates of Constantinople.
It is with the history of the first phase of the great drama that this book deals, from the beginning of things to the grand climacteric of Salamis. The story begins with prehistoric Greece. Of the Bronze Age civilization of Greece which has been revealed to us by the discoveries of Schliemann, Halbherr, and Evans we cannot yet write the history: we can only guess at the probable course of events from the relics of antiquity which archaeology has revealed to us. It is otherwise with Egypt, with Babylonia, and Assyria. Of them we have intelligible records upon which we can base history.”

Genres: History, Ancient History

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 22, 2009

About the author

Harry Reginald Holland Hall, 1873-1930

Published under Harry Reginald Hall; archaeologist and historian; Assistant in, and later Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum

Reviews

[ed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Racist victorian

I only got about 25 pages into this pap, and found that the Greeks are many times more intelligent than asiatics,but read on past a couple of inaccuracies and stopped at the phrase "gibbering blacks"

[Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

June 20, 2018

A Review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book "The Ancient History of the Near East" by Henry R. Hall

I purchased this book in the Kindle format at a very low price (Thank Goodness). I thought it would provide me with some good background information in understanding this often troubling area of the world based on it's early history. It is a tome of a book and again thankfully it was in the Kindle format and therefore not a strain in holding up the book. I should have gotten the message when the author initially described it as a summary of more extensive studies of this region. Also I should have checked the copyright date of this book not the publishing date. The copyright date is 1913 and the publishing (Kindle) date was 2018.


As I "muscled" my way through almost a third of the book, I kept asking myself why am I reading this book? Hall, the author (by now dead) explained that this was a "concise" review of both the prehistoric learning's from artifacts and art but not on the early writings which there are none known. It tried to make the reader understand from a pre historic names of people and places resulting from archeological findings some of the cultural aspects of life in Egypt and Mesopotamia. There must have been a ton of information not referenced or cited by the author, he drew upon to list name and families and locations no longer in existence. The flow of these names and places were both mind numbing and exhaustive.

When the author commented on the Mesopotamia area, It was a little bit better because I have some background based on reading other historical works including the Old Testament but again the flow of names and places no longer in existence was choking and nearly gagged me several times.

I complained to my wife that I am reading a book impossible to follow either chronologically or through a provided horizontal time line. She asked me why am I reading it. I said I am learning something about the bronze age and the evolution of metallurgical weapons, including the beginnings of the iron age. I learned that social and commercial interchange happened thousands of years before of recorded history and that there was even racial prejudices, e.g., the northern Egyptians looked down upon the southern Egyptians and they were the Nubian's.

I gave this book one star, even though I only accomplished 35% of the book because maybe someone a lot smarter than me, or perhaps schooled in pre-history of both the Egyptians or those people from the fertile triangle would find some enjoyment Also, the author (probably RIP) did demonstrate a great deal of scholarship as he tried to make some sense of man's development. I just was not for me and I would never recommend trying to read it. For those who gave this book five stars, God bless you and I admire your intelligence (way above mine).

A difficult read, You better have great background to enjoy 620+ pages of dry reading with names of people impossible to decipher. 200 pages was enough for this reviewer.

[Naga Sabe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete and detailed description of the ancient cultures of the Near East. I really recommend this book. It is very entertaining and informative for anyone who is interested in cultures like Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian and many others, their relationship, influence and history.

[L.K.Mirza · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book for the writing, but kept getting distracted by how much we have learned since it was written.