A review by aaronj21
Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire by Eckart Frahm

3.0

This book falls into the niche category I like to call “newer, popular, non-fiction, history that presents an often reviled ancient civilization in a less biased context”, other examples include Persians (2022) by Lloyd-Llewellyn Jones and Fifth Sun (2019) by Camilla Townsend.

If the general public know about the Assyrians at all they know them as the bad guys from the Bible. Cruel despots who seemed to have all the pitilessness of the Mongols, and the acquisitiveness of the Romans without any of their redeeming qualities. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. They were a brutal people in conquest but the bronze age near east was a brutal time and place. The Assyrian’s place in history and the legacy they left the world has been largely poisoned or over shadowed.

This book goes a fair way to correcting that misconception and sheds light on a fascinating period of history. I’d recommend this to anyone wanting to dip their toes in ancient near eastern history.