★★★★★ 2
Great idea, great cover, poor execution
Format: Paperback
This is a great idea that was badly done. On the production side, insufficient glue in the binding causes pages to fall out when you turn them - dozens of pages, not just one or two. This is surprising given the good quality of the paper and cover.
As for content, the writing is very poor & shallow. I'm reminded of a high school essay by poor student unfamiliar with history who is looking looking up the subject matter on Wikipedia as they go but leaving out all the good stuff. For example, we get a king list for Kush spread over several pages, but virtually no actual history -- despite the fact that all of Egypt was there to quote from for at least the enemy's side of the story, and Assyrian sources could have been cited as well. I don't gain much new information from the 50th repetition of "nobody knows this" and "nobody knows that." A real historian can impost structure on the unknowns by showing the archaeology or citing history & folklore & epigraphs. This could have been presented in simple high school language, outlining the alternative possibilities from the little we do know, and explaining how we know what little we know. Photographs of actual ruins and art would help. Unfortunately the subject matter is really not touched.
Too bad. This could have been a very good project.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021
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