Title Details

List of Charts.

List of Maps.

List of Boxes.

List of Documents.

Preface to Second Edition.

Preface to First Edition.

Acknowledgments.

Author’s Note.

1. Introductory Concerns.

1.1 What is the Ancient Near East?.

1.2 The Sources.

1.3 Geography.

1.4 Prehistoric Developments.

Part I: City-States:.

2. Origins: The Uruk Phenomenon.

2.1 The Origins of Cities.

2.2 The Development of Writing and Administration.

2.3 The “Uruk Expansion”.

2.4 Uruk’s Aftermath.

3. Competing City-States: The Early Dynastic Period.

3.1 The Written Sources and their Historical Uses.

3.2 Political Developments in Southern Mesopotamia.

3.3 The Wider Near East.

3.4 Early Dynastic Society.

3.5 Scribal Culture.

4. Political Centralization in the Late Third Millennium.

4.1 The Kings of Akkad.

4.2 The Third Dynasty of Ur.

5. The Near East in the Early Second Millennium.

5.1 Nomads and Sedentary People.

5.2 Babylonia.

5.3 Assyria and the East.

5.4 Mari and the West.

6. The Growth of Territorial States in the Early Second Millennium.

6.1 Shamshi-Adad and the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia.

6.2 Hammurabi’s Babylon.

6.3 The Old Hittite Kingdom.

6.4 The “Dark Age”.

Part II: Territorial States:.

7. The Club of the Great Powers.

7.1 The Political System.

7.2 Political Interactions: Diplomacy and Trade.

7.3 Regional Competition: Warfare.

7.4 Shared Ideologies and Social Organizations.

8. The Western States of the Late Second Millennium.

8.1 Mittani.

8.2 The Hittite New Kingdom.

8.3 Syria-Palestine.

9. Kassites, Assyrians, and Elamites.

9.1 Babylonia.

9.2 Assyria.

9.3 The Middle Elamite Kingdom.

10. The Collapse of the Regional System and its Aftermath.

10.1 The Events.

10.2 Interpretation.

10.3 The Aftermath.

Part III: Empires:.

11. The Near East at the Start of the First Millennium.

11.1 The Eastern States.

11.2 The West.

12. The Rise of Assyria.

12.1 Patterns of Assyrian Imperialism.

12.2 The Historical Record.

12.3 Ninth-Century Expansion.

12.4 Internal Assyrian Decline.

13. Assyria’s World Domination.

13.1 The Creation of an Imperial Structure.

13.2 The Defeat of the Great Rivals.

13.3 The Administration and Ideology of the Empire.

13.4 Assyrian Culture.

13.5 Assyria’s Fall.

14. The Medes and Babylonians.

14.1 The Medes and the Anatolian States.

14.2 The Neo-Babylonian Dynasty.

15. The Persian Empire.

15.1 The Rise of Persia and its Expansion.

15.2 Political Developments.

15.3 Organization of the Empire.

15.4 Alexander of Macedon.

King Lists.

Guide to Further Reading.

Index

Praise for second edition:

“The additions to this volume have only added to its immense worth as both a textbook and a scholarly volume.” Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Praise for the first edition:

"Marc Van De Mieroop's introduction to the history of Iraq and the Asiatic Near East is suited to first-year undergraduates in ancient history, the archaeology of Western Asia and ancient Near Eastern studies generally, and to all others who need an up-to-date summary of what happened before the Greeks." Times Higher Education Supplement

"I do not know of any other handbook of similar size that can compete with Van de Mieroop's book in philological competence, in historiographic method, and in expository clearness." Mario Liverani, in Orientalia

“This text deserves a place on the shelves of ancient historians and archaeologists, and it will certainly have pride of place in reading lists for courses in Mesopotamian history.” Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan

“As a textbook on Mesopotamian history, particularly the period from c.3000 BC to 612 BC, this book has no English-language equivalent … This should be standard reading, therefore, for all students and scholars in the field.” Bryn Mawr Classical Review