Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age

Rating:
Summary: One of the best popular historians writing today
Review: Bryce is a writer who brings history excitingly to life. This book covers the last 500 years of the bronze age, which separates the era of the city states on one hand and - after an interim "dark age" - the great empires of the first millenium on the other.

Bryce explores this world through the medium of the written archives of the 5 great states that dominated this world over the bulk of this period. It is an exciting and readable story, which I completed over the course of a single weekend. Bryce does not pretend that this tells the complete picture of these societies - it is the picture of an elite at work, rest and play - but it is a wonderful overview that is well worthy of the tradition of Herodotus.

I docked one star because there were occasional signs of hasty writing / proofediting that marred my reading enjoyment. I made some notes from one single page near the end of the book, page 228.
para 4, first sentence "But it may not have failed entirely." It's not immediately obvious what the subject "it" refers to, and might be better phrased "But the viceroy's rebuke may not have been entirely without effect."
On the next line, "cap-ability" the hyphen is missing (I was left wondering for a few seconds what a "defence cap ability" was!)
And finally the penultimate paragraph, first sentence "The letter was found in the house of Rapanu." Who or what is Rapanu - i had to refer to the index to be reminded he had cropped up in a previous chapter. The sentence would be better formulated for the reader, "This letter, found in the house of a senior citizen of Ugarit named Rapanu, shows that it was clearly..."

Having written this much, one final comment - in the historical overview at the beginning, a bit more scaffolding for the reader might be helpful. I can find immediately one example of what I mean: on page 16, when hammurabi comes to power, it could be mentioned that this was towards the end of the reign of Shamshi-Adad - this both provides a useful reference point and brackets nicely the text to the point where the Assyrian kingdom finally falls under his sway.

But to sum up: I can promise that no-one with any interest in ancient history will fail to be enthralled by this book.