'I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves ... It melts away the sense of time. A wonderful read.'
TOM HOLLAND
'A tender, moving and vivid history of ancient Mesopotamia and how it still speaks to us.'
ROBERT MACFARLANE
'Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece.'
GEORGE MONBIOT
'Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history ... spellbinding'
NEW SCIENTIST
----------
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.
What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.
In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.
Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.
"Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history, cleverly wrought from tablets written in the world's oldest script ... spellbinding ... a fresh and very human portrait of the region... Through her clever sifting of the texts, we see how cuneiform ... helped to bind these civilisations together across millennia... We also discover, in Al-Rashid's vivid rendering of the texts, very moving details from the lives of real people in Mesopotamia over the ages ... Al-Rashid's academic background gives her a wonderful confidence as she roves around the literary and archaeological evidence. She is also a gifted storyteller, able to spin a yarn of gold from the very fragmentary sources ... This is a delightful book, and a must-read for anyone interested in these civilisations. I hope it serves to shine a larger spotlight on this extraordinary period in humanity's past." - New Scientist
"Wonderfully vivid." - Literary Review
"Her infectious enthusiasm imbues Between Two Rivers, a lively and beguiling history of ancient Mesopotamia ... I found myself completely enthralled by an ancient period and civilisation I previously knew very little about." - What to Read Now
"A lively portrait of this ancient civilisation ... Al-Rashid is an engaging and knowledgeable guide ... Many of her characters - bored schoolboys, tired parents and squabbling siblings - are extremely relatable ... Between Two Rivers provides remarkable insights into ancient lives ... even at a distance of nearly four millennia, it is impossible not be moved" - Sunday Times
Формат: Скан PDf
TOM HOLLAND
'A tender, moving and vivid history of ancient Mesopotamia and how it still speaks to us.'
ROBERT MACFARLANE
'Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece.'
GEORGE MONBIOT
'Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history ... spellbinding'
NEW SCIENTIST
----------
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.
What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.
In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.
Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.
"Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history, cleverly wrought from tablets written in the world's oldest script ... spellbinding ... a fresh and very human portrait of the region... Through her clever sifting of the texts, we see how cuneiform ... helped to bind these civilisations together across millennia... We also discover, in Al-Rashid's vivid rendering of the texts, very moving details from the lives of real people in Mesopotamia over the ages ... Al-Rashid's academic background gives her a wonderful confidence as she roves around the literary and archaeological evidence. She is also a gifted storyteller, able to spin a yarn of gold from the very fragmentary sources ... This is a delightful book, and a must-read for anyone interested in these civilisations. I hope it serves to shine a larger spotlight on this extraordinary period in humanity's past." - New Scientist
"Wonderfully vivid." - Literary Review
"Her infectious enthusiasm imbues Between Two Rivers, a lively and beguiling history of ancient Mesopotamia ... I found myself completely enthralled by an ancient period and civilisation I previously knew very little about." - What to Read Now
"A lively portrait of this ancient civilisation ... Al-Rashid is an engaging and knowledgeable guide ... Many of her characters - bored schoolboys, tired parents and squabbling siblings - are extremely relatable ... Between Two Rivers provides remarkable insights into ancient lives ... even at a distance of nearly four millennia, it is impossible not be moved" - Sunday Times
Формат: Скан PDf
https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/between-two-rivers-a-wonderful-read-tom-holland.html