The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy

Yes, this tome cost forty plus dollars but I never considered that an issue. I spent nearly 5 months reading this book; normally by that time I would have become bored with the subject and moved on to something else. And yes this book provides a general overview of the Middle East but it also provides just enough detailed information that if you find something interesting you won't go wondering off looking for another source to fill your need.

This is a very well written account of the ancient near east through time. Full of details and easy to read. I am still reading it.

Very detailed and objective general text about that area and time period.

There are many textbooks written pertaining to the study of Ancient Near East (ANE), and mostly in the area of culture, archaeological discovery, and anthropology. The history of ANE has been gently squeezed out of the field by these counterparts, and with the difficulty in establishing a comprehensive history of the ancient past, the study of the history of ANE has been further removed from the scholarly platform. Mario Liverani’s The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy is a timely attempt to overcome this indifference of the history of ANE, which is laudable. Below are some comments on this excellent work.(1) This is a good presentation of Ancient Near Eastern history, as it covers the historical periods from Neolithic and Chalcolithic to Persian Empire in a comprehensive manner.(2) This should help to revive the study of ANE history, which is losing its ground to archaeology, anthropology, and ancient culture. History is essential to interconnecting the developments in the ancient pasts, and it provides a platform for archaeological discovery, anthropological study, and ancient cultural study, to shape the ancient world, which is often too distant from 21st century moderns. Liverani’s focus on the history, society, and economy enhances the formulation of the ANE world.(3) The historical contexts provided in Liverani’s ANE have much to contribute to Old Testament studies. The background information helps to paint the OT in the light of the historical developments behind the biblical texts. For example, Liverani’s ANE has shown a vivid picture of Israel in the contexts of the historic Near East, and that comparatively, it is a much smaller state than her counterparts in the ANE.(4) Particularly, the chapter on Israel, which is aligned with most critical scholarship, especially the minimalists, that the Bible is not the main source for ancient knowledge. Liverani does not seem to support the ideology that the Bible as the source for reconstructing of Israel’s history, but the history of the Near East should be consulted in order to accomplish that. Livernai does provide the historical contexts for the study of Israel’s biblical history.Overall, it is a good textbook for the study of Near Eastern history. I highly recommend this book, and shall give it 5 stars.

While Prof. Liverani masterfully describes the Near East in this book, the final product is less than ideal due to the edition and the translation. There is a severe lack of maps and references to places, especially when Dr. Liverani lists ten different cities and regions that no longer exist to make a point about a particular socio-economic interplay. There are not enough timelines, maps and the caption and legend to many figures is just insufficient to even comprehend the point the image is trying to make.The paper used in this edition is extremely thick and the font size is way too small. Put that in a large book, you have the impression of reading clay tablets yourself. It is very hard to comfortably read this book, as the paper thickness makes it heavy and the font size makes it unreadable in most positions.The translation from Italian could use some improvement. There is probably a grammatical construction in Italian to naturally connect two sentences when the second makes reference to the first. The translation solves this with repeated uses of "The latter", sometimes multiple per paragraph, these small speed bumps are very tiresome in the long run (it is a long book!). I am sure there is a more natural way to translate this work that does not yield a shopping list of cities and kings, but sometimes this is what the translation gives you.Overall I do not recommend this book in its current edition. Prof. Liverani would do well to shift editors and get feedback from people that do now know exactly where is Gobekle Tepe, I am sure they would ask for more maps, timelines and more useful figures than just a black-and-white low resolution photo of a farmer in modern Iraq.

After 30 years of being a dentist, I am still drawn back to a college course of “Ancient Cities” which has always captured my imagination. I read history of all time periods and love it all but I always seem to end up back at the beginning. I still recall my archaeology professor in 1983 showing slides (real slides then) at showing lamassu telling us all that these “clearly border on the fantastic.” I don’t recall any quotes from chemistry.I seem to get stuck between texts that are too simple and research papers that are very esoteric and super specialized.I am 100 pages into this book and it fits a happy medium thus far. As the author suggests in the intro- this book is too long to be ideally suited for a semester college course and not appropriate for research scholar really either- which leaves something beautiful for most of the rest of us-searching to escape the noise of today- to discover something greater. It is still difficult to read about trends of civilization over centuries and millennium to understand the hardships our ancestors withstood. I am finding the book is good at discussing trends over time and changes in terms I can largely understand. This book is very good at elucidating what is known, what is conjecture and what are questions to consider. This book should be a hardback as it is a seminal work and will remain on most bookshelves until it is dug up at some point in the distant future. Best wishes.

An absolutely abundant and invaluable information about the ancient Near East.An important corner stone to the solution of the overall world puzzle of power.