This is a concise introduction to the history of the ancient Near East during the last millennium BC: Phoenicia, Palestine, the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, the Persian Achaemenid empire, the empire of Alexander, and the vast Persian Seleucid empire founded by Seleucus around 300 bc and defeated by Pompey for Rome in 64 bc. The book focuses on political history, on the sources and shifts of power and the individuals who wielded it. It also introduces the student to the principal aspects of the religious, social and economic history of the region.
The narrative is succinct, backed up by summary tables and maps, and enlivened by lengthy quotations from contemporary documents. The latter are frequently used to illustrate specific case studies. The book ends with a chronology and glossary, as well as an adapted further reading list.
Author(s): Francis Joannes
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 224
City: Edinburgh
Contents
Introduction
1 The world of the peoples of Mesopotamia
2 Political history of the Assyrian empire (934–610 BC)
3 Control of the imperial territory
4 The centre of Assyrian government
5 Babylonia: from kingdom to empire (900–539 BC)
6 Society and economy in the neo-Babylonian period
7 Religion and culture in Babylonia in the first millennium BC
8 Achaemenid Babylonia (539–331 BC)
9 From the Seleucids to the Parthians (331 BC to AD 75)
Conclusion
Political chronology
Glossary
Bibliography
Sources of the texts quoted
Index
