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Sumer: Kings of Dust and Clay: A History of the Rise and Fall of Man's First Great Civilization
They built the first cities. They invented writing. They created civilization itself.
Then it all came crashing down.
Before Egypt built the pyramids, before Rome conquered the known world, the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia created everything we associate with writing, mathematics, law, cities, and literature. For 1,500 years, they thrived.
Then climate catastrophe struck. Invasion followed. Famine spread. An empire that seemed eternal collapsed within a generation.
In Kings of Dust and Clay, you'll
How a 100-year climate disaster triggered civilizational collapseWhy our 60-minute hour traces back to ancient Sumerian mathematicsThe real story behind the Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical flood narrativeWhat 4,000-year-old clay tablets reveal about economic collapse and hyperinflationHow a civilization disappears—and what survivesThis isn't dry academic history. Historian Noam Cohen brings ancient Mesopotamia to life through the eyes of real ambitious kings, desperate merchants, generals facing impossible odds, scribes recording the end of their world.
Based on actual cuneiform tablets, archaeological evidence, and cutting-edge paleoclimate research, this is the true story of humanity's first great civilization—and the lessons it holds for our own fragile world.
Reads Malcolm Gladwell meets ancient history Perfect for fans Guns, Germs, and Steel • 1491 • Collapse • Sapiens • The Silk Roads
"History begins at Sumer." —Samuel Noah Kramer, legendary Sumerologist
Then it all came crashing down.
Before Egypt built the pyramids, before Rome conquered the known world, the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia created everything we associate with writing, mathematics, law, cities, and literature. For 1,500 years, they thrived.
Then climate catastrophe struck. Invasion followed. Famine spread. An empire that seemed eternal collapsed within a generation.
In Kings of Dust and Clay, you'll
How a 100-year climate disaster triggered civilizational collapseWhy our 60-minute hour traces back to ancient Sumerian mathematicsThe real story behind the Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical flood narrativeWhat 4,000-year-old clay tablets reveal about economic collapse and hyperinflationHow a civilization disappears—and what survivesThis isn't dry academic history. Historian Noam Cohen brings ancient Mesopotamia to life through the eyes of real ambitious kings, desperate merchants, generals facing impossible odds, scribes recording the end of their world.
Based on actual cuneiform tablets, archaeological evidence, and cutting-edge paleoclimate research, this is the true story of humanity's first great civilization—and the lessons it holds for our own fragile world.
Reads Malcolm Gladwell meets ancient history Perfect for fans Guns, Germs, and Steel • 1491 • Collapse • Sapiens • The Silk Roads
"History begins at Sumer." —Samuel Noah Kramer, legendary Sumerologist
496 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 11, 2025
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