Here are 100 books that Brotherhood of Kings fans have personally recommended if you like
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My interest in the ancient Near East began when I was about 8 years old. One day, when couldn’t find anything to do, I started paging through a book on Assyrian art that I found in one of my parents’ bookcases. I was hooked. I wanted to know what made those mysterious ancients tick. How did they understand the world they inhabited? How did they live? What made them fight so hard and so often? I became an Assyriologist in order to answer those questions, and I’ve been working toward that goal ever since.
Van de Mieroop’s history of the ancient Near East is concise, engaging, and up to date. For anyone new to the subject this book is a great place to start. Find out about the first cities and social institutions, ideologies and religious beliefs, long-distance trade, state formation, and the wars of imperial expansion. Van De Mieroop augments his narrative with passages from ancient sources, plenty of maps and illustrations, and information about important research questions and controversies.
Incorporating the latest scholarly research, the third edition of A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 323 BC presents a comprehensive overview of the multicultural civilizations of the ancient Near East. * Integrates the most up-to-date research, and includes a richer selection of supplementary materials * Addresses the wide variety of political, social, and cultural developments in the ancient Near East * Updated features include new Key Debate boxes at the end of each chapter to engage students with various perspectives on a range of critical issues; a comprehensive timeline of events; and 46 new illustrations, including 12…
My interest in the ancient Near East began when I was about 8 years old. One day, when couldn’t find anything to do, I started paging through a book on Assyrian art that I found in one of my parents’ bookcases. I was hooked. I wanted to know what made those mysterious ancients tick. How did they understand the world they inhabited? How did they live? What made them fight so hard and so often? I became an Assyriologist in order to answer those questions, and I’ve been working toward that goal ever since.
This comprehensive volume (over 1000 pages!) presents three millennia of Akkadian literary texts in translation including myths, epics, wisdom literature, humor, hymns, and incantations. Read a husband’s lament for his wife who died in childbirth, an appeal to a god for help against enemies or the triumphant epic of an Assyrian king. Foster’s introductory comments and explanatory notes help readers appreciate the themes and literary techniques associated with each genre, and his translations are moving and eloquent. I love this book and return to it whenever I need a dose of beautiful ancient poetry.
Comprehensive collection of ancient Akkadian literature spanning three millennia. This larger, completely new, 3rd edition contains many compositions not in the previous editions; new translations of previously included compositions; incorporation of new text fragments identified or excavated since the last publication; all new footnotes; references and commentary brought up to date to reflect scholarly work of the last 10 years; and 100 more pages than the old two-volume edition.
My interest in the ancient Near East began when I was about 8 years old. One day, when couldn’t find anything to do, I started paging through a book on Assyrian art that I found in one of my parents’ bookcases. I was hooked. I wanted to know what made those mysterious ancients tick. How did they understand the world they inhabited? How did they live? What made them fight so hard and so often? I became an Assyriologist in order to answer those questions, and I’ve been working toward that goal ever since.
Beyond its initial purpose to support an exhibition at the British Museum, this book offers an excellent introduction to the Assyrian Empire at the height of its power and to Ashurbanipal, the empire’s last great king. Bereton’s cogent narrative and the volume’s beautiful photographs make for an extraordinarily appealing book. It is also full of accurate, detailed information about the Assyrians, their culture, and the various people they fought and conquered.
In 669 BC Ashurbanipal inherited the world's largest empire, which stretched from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean to the mountains of western Iran. He ruled from his massive capital at Nineveh, in present-day Iraq, where temples and palaces adorned with brilliantly carved sculptures dominated the citadel mound, and an elaborate system of aqueducts and canals brought water to the king's pleasure gardens. Ashurbanipal, proud of his scholarship, assembled the greatest library in existence during his reign. Guided by this knowledge, he defined the course of the Assyrian empire and asserted his claim to be `king of the world'.
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
My interest in the ancient Near East began when I was about 8 years old. One day, when couldn’t find anything to do, I started paging through a book on Assyrian art that I found in one of my parents’ bookcases. I was hooked. I wanted to know what made those mysterious ancients tick. How did they understand the world they inhabited? How did they live? What made them fight so hard and so often? I became an Assyriologist in order to answer those questions, and I’ve been working toward that goal ever since.
The atlas introduces the reader to Near Eastern geography, history, and culture, and it complements the other books included here. Roaf maps (literally and figuratively) the various cultures of the Near East during ancient times. His commentary is interesting and the maps beautifully produced, easy to interpret, and accurate. They cover a wide range of data including climate and environment, natural resources, linguistic and cultural information, trade routes, and the territories of different polities. Take some time to explore the atlas; you will not regret it.
An exploration into the geography, history, archaeology and anthropology of the Near East from pre-history to 330 BC. Coverage includes early farming, the move towards civilization, the urban explosion, warring states, trade, international empires and conquerors from East and West.
Teresa Fava Thomas, Ph.D. is a professor of history at Fitchburg State University and author of American Arabists in theCold War Middle East, 1946-75: From Orientalism to Professionalismfor Anthem Press. I became interested in people who became area experts for the US State Department and how their study of hard languages like Arabic shaped their interactions with people in the region.
Although women have worked in diplomacy, their experiences serving in the United State Foreign Service are little known or understood. Her experience began in 1944 and she represented the USA in many countries, from Honduras to Zambia, in the State Department. Advancing your career and learning foreign languages while facing the professional challenges of operating in a wide variety of consulates and embassies makes for a fascinating story and explains a different perspective.
"In Abroad for Her Country, Jean M. Wilkowski shares the story of her extraordinary career in the U.S. Foreign Service during the last half of the twentieth century. Born in an era when few women sought professional careers, Wilkowski graduated from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and the University of Wisconsin and then rose through the ranks at the Department of State, from Vice Consul to the first woman U.S. Ambassador to an African country and the first woman acting U.S. Ambassador in Latin America.
During her thirty-five-year diplomatic career, Wilkowski was sent first as a vice consul to the Caribbean during…
Award-winning journalist and historian Andrew Nagorski was born in Scotland to Polish parents, moved to the United States as an infant, and has rarely stopped moving since. During a long career at Newsweek, he served as the magazine's bureau chief in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Warsaw, and Berlin. In 1982, he gained international notoriety when the Kremlin, angered by his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the Soviet Union. Nagorski is the author of seven books, including The Nazi Huntersand Hitlerland.
Ivan Maisky served as the Soviet Union’s ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943. In his extensive diaries, he chronicled his frequent interactions with Churchill and other British officials. He predicted that 1941 would be “the decisive year of the war,” which proved accurate. But, like his boss Joseph Stalin, he refused to believe at first that Hitler would turn against the Soviet Union, with whom Germany had signed a non-aggression pact. His diary shows how quickly the Kremlin acted as if it had always opposed Hitler’s plans—and made increasingly strident demands for Western aid. The makings of the future Cold War are already evident in this account.
Highlights of the extraordinary wartime diaries of Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to London
The terror and purges of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the unique diary assiduously kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. This selection from Maisky's diary, never before published in English, grippingly documents Britain's drift to war during the 1930s, appeasement in the Munich era, negotiations leading to the signature of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Churchill's rise to power, the German invasion of Russia, and the…
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
As a former journalist-turned-lawyer and a recovering news junky, I’ve spent much of my life watching unhappy scenarios play out. But what’s always astonished me me is how, no matter how bad things get or how difficult the situation, there’s a spark of humanity, of kindness and compassion and optimism, that comes out in people at the most unexpected of times. Now, as an author and a parent, I find myself drawn to stories that remind me of that—that no matter how bleak life may look, how cruel or arbitrary the circumstances, there’s something good and beautiful and worth fighting for, not “somewhere out there,” but inside us.
The delicious worldbuilding, with its gorgeous, sensual details, and the intriguing story setup, were the things that grabbed me and pulled me into the book. The characters—funny, complicated, and utterly loveable—convinced me to stay.
But it was the complex, beautiful exploration of identity, belonging, love, grief, and longing that’s stayed with me since I listened to the last word of the audiobook. This book manages to be both an exciting and action-packed adventure and a beautiful tribute to the bittersweet complexities of being human.
This incredible opening to the duology recalls the best of John le Carre, Iain M. Banks's Culture novels and Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy.
In a war of lies she seeks the truth . . .
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the Teixcalaanli Empire's interstellar capital, eager to take up her new post. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. But no one will admit his death wasn't accidental - and she might be next.
Now Mahit must navigate the capital's enticing yet deadly halls of power, to discover dangerous truths. And while she hunts for the…
I am a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland and I am fascinated by big picture questions about how we became the peculiar creatures that we are. Shortly after I was asked to compile a list of recommendations, I attended my friend Ashley Hay’s book launch of Gum. This beautiful book does not just present a bunch of facts about Australia’s iconic trees, but uses this lens to examine many broader issues from colonial history to climate change. Reading it inspired me to create the present list of books that, unlike the rote learning of dates that marked many history classes at school, take much more interesting, novel vantage points from which to understand why things turned out the way they did.
Occasionally, a novel perspective on events that changed the world can also be presented in a novel (sorry). Gore Vidal’s Creation is one example that left a deep impression on me. With the invention of writing, human philosophies could manifest in lasting new ways that profoundly shaped the world. Vidal’s historical fiction invites us to entertain the possibility that a single human living in the 5th century BC could have met the founding fathers of many of today’s moral traditions. It tells the story of the imaginary life of Cyrus, a Persian diplomat, grandson of Zoroaster, who travels the world and meets Socrates, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius among others. This may not be an easy read, and I recall it involved a lot of name-dropping, but it is worth the effort – providing a fascinating comparative perspective on religion and the human quest for meaning.
A sweeping novel of politics, war, philosophy, and adventure–in a restored edition, featuring never-before-published material from Gore Vidal’s original manuscript–Creationoffers a captivating grand tour of the ancient world. Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens–the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates–Cyrus recounts…
I’m a recovering ambassador, now running an Oxford college. After almost 25 years in diplomacy, including working in no 10 for three prime ministers, I realised that education is upstream diplomacy. If we are to find a way through the challenges ahead – from climate change to pandemics and economic crisis to artificial intelligence – we must act, urgently, to upgrade why, what, and how we learn. I set out to ask hundreds of the most inspirational people on the planet what they wished they had known, and what they would share with the next generation if this was their last day.
In this gently articulated yet profoundly challenging book, Omar offers advice to his son and reflects on the assassination of his father. He challenges us about the dangers of certainty and the importance of liberty of thought and speech. “I want you to beware of anyone who tells you, with utter conviction, what you should think.” The letters are to his son, but the contents are great truths for all of us.
In a series of personal letters to his sons, Omar Saif Ghobash offers a short and highly readable manifesto that tackles our current global crisis with the training of an experienced diplomat and the personal responsibility of a father. Today's young Muslims will be tomorrow's leaders, and yet too many are vulnerable to extremist propaganda that seems omnipresent in our technological age. The burning question, Ghobash argues, is how moderate Muslims can unite to find a voice that is true to Islam while actively and productively engaging in the modern world. What does it mean to be a good Muslim?…
My passion is fixing our diplomacy. Relatively late in my career, I found a new home working with and for some of the Foreign Service’s most talented people. My assignments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (during the 1990-91 Gulf War) led to my appointment as ambassador in Oman. After retirement I returned to Cairo to set up a regional multilateral development bank (we were unsuccessful) and later rebuild Iraq’s foreign ministry. I experienced the negative and frustrating impact of politicization and militarization on our foreign policy. Knowing we can and must do better motivated me to writeFrom Sadat to Saddam and to commend to you the five books below.
Richter recounts the stories of four extraordinary professional diplomats who served post 9/11 and are role models for the diplomats of the future. Anne Patterson, U.S. ambassador in Egypt and Pakistan, worked for me briefly in Washington and Riyadh. I crossed paths with Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan, many times in Washington, Baghdad, and elsewhere. I met Chris Stevens once before he became U.S. ambassador in Libya. The political exploitation of his death was outrageous. I didn’t know Robert Ford, who resigned in frustration over U.S. policy toward Syria. They were sent to dangerous and unstable places. Diplomacy can be risky. They had to work closely were their military counterparts. They experienced the frustration of advising Washington politicians who lack both understanding and a willingness to listen.
Veteran diplomatic correspondent Paul Richter goes behind the battles and the headlines to show how American ambassadors are the unconventional warriors in the Muslim world-running local government, directing drone strikes, building nations, and risking their lives on the front lines.
The tale's heroes are a small circle of top career diplomats who have been an unheralded but crucial line of national defense in the past two decades of wars in the greater Middle East. In The Ambassadors, Paul Richter shares the astonishing, true-life stories of four expeditionary diplomats who "do the hardest things in the hardest places."
