From Mesopotamia to Iraq: A Concise History

by Hans J. Nissen (Editor, Translator), Peter Heine (Editor)

The recent reopening of Iraq’s National Museum attracted worldwide attention, underscoring the country’s dual image as both the cradle of civilization and a contemporary geopolitical battleground. A sweeping account of the rich history that has played out between these chronological poles, From Mesopotamia to Iraq looks back through 10,000 years of the region’s deeply significant yet increasingly overshadowed past.

 

Hans J. Nissen and Peter Heine begin by explaining how ancient Mesopotamian inventions—including urban society, a system of writing, and mathematical texts that anticipated Pythagoras—profoundly influenced the course of human history. These towering innovations, they go on to reveal, have sometimes obscured the major role Mesopotamia continued to play on the world stage. Alexander the Great, for example, was fascinated by Babylon and eventually died there. Seventh-century Muslim armies made the region one of their first conquests outside the Arabian peninsula. And the Arab caliphs who ruled for centuries after the invasion built the magnificent city of Baghdad, attracting legions of artists and scientists. Tracing the evolution of this vibrant country into a contested part of the Ottoman Empire, a twentieth-century British colony, a republic ruled by Saddam Hussein, and the democracy it has become, Nissen and Heine repair the fragmented image of Iraq that has come to dominate our collective imagination.

 

In hardly any other continuously inhabited part of the globe can we chart such developments in politics, economy, and culture across so extended a period of time. By doing just that, the authors illuminate nothing less than the forces that have made the world what it is today.

Genres: History, Middle East, Ancient History

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2003

Reviews

[Jay Pascacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great introduction to the history of Mesopotamia or modern-day Iraq, though the writing can be a bit dry.

I found the latter half of the book, detailing the rise of Islam in the region, to be incohesive and sometimes, even confusing. While I understand that it was meant to be concise, the constant time jumps and lack of context often made it difficult to follow some of the narratives, especially without prior knowledge of the region.

Nevertheless, I will still give it three stars because the first half of the book succinctly summarized the cultural, social and economic history of the region. For example, there were many discussions of the religions of pre-Islamic Mesopotamia and their effects on politics and administrative functions. Any person interested in social anthropology and archeological anthropology should read this book.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title notes, this is indeed a 'concise' history of the region formerly known as Mesopotamia and now as Iraq, with the emphasis firmly in the pre-Islamic eras, especially the ancient cultures, such as Babylon, Ur, Assyria, Sumer, etc. As behooves a book written by a pair of Germans, it is a little dry, but the subject matter is adequately covered; a solid introduction to the region if your interests don't extend too deeply into contemporary geopolitics. The maps are way to small and of too large an area to be of any practical help.