Reddit mentions: The best assyria, babylonia & sumer history books

Welcome to the sub, WalksWithin!

You'll likely get a much more in-depth response from Erra-Epiri when she's on next, since she's infinitely more scholarly than I am, but, I'll toss a few titles your way, and she'll fill it out for you.

First, I'm not personally aware of too many books that are overviews of Mesopotamian gods and goddesses exclusively. What I can recommend, on this subject though, is the following:

• Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia
  
  While it may seem a simple reference book at first, this is actually one of the most concise overviews of religious ideas and beliefs found in Mesopotamia. It has entries on deities, cities, mythological creatures, symbols, and so much more. It's very useful.
  
  Second, the real meat and potatoes concerning gods and goddesses is found in the mythology of Mesopotamia. Everything we know about them comes exclusively from the cuneiform tablets that have been excavated and translated. Here are my favorite books which cover exclusively mythology:
  
  
• The Harps That Once...
  
• Myths From Mesopotamia
  
  Third, an actual study of the religion may also be of interest to you. The following books are a bit more complex, though they can be very enlightening:
  
  
• The Treasures of Darkness
  
• The Image of the Netherworld
  
  Finally, a few general information books, which touch on religious ideas, mythology, the gods, as well as history and culture. These both come from a writer named Samuel Noah Kramer, an esteemed Sumerologist who's well worth reading:
  
  
• The Sumerians
  
• History Begins At Sumer
  
  My personal recommendation, if you're solely interested in the gods and goddesses, would be some combination of "Gods, Demons, and Symbols" + either "The Harps That Once" or "Myths from Mesopotamia" to get started.
  
  If you're willing to put a little more legwork in though, any of the other books I listed above will be very good. And, further, if you're curious, I can point you toward a number of online resources that have better information than just what you'll find on Wikipedia, or through a Google search.
  
  Once again, welcome to the sub! Feel free to ask questions if you have them.

This is quite late, but now that I'm more knowledgeable about resources for Sumerian I would like to recommend some:

Thomsen's [The Sumerian Language] (http://www.amazon.com/Sumerian-Language-Introduction-Grammatical-Multilingual/dp/8750036548/) is very useful to have even as a beginner and has been the traditional way of learning Sumerian. Good luck getting a hard copy of it though, its been out of print, so it's very difficult to obtain. Maybe try looking for it at a library? I'm sure there are online sources for it though.

Jagersma is also a good source for learning the grammar if you can't get your hands on Thomsen. Fully available online. It was his dissertation, so expect more up to date terminology and currents trends for understanding the grammar.

Edzard's Sumerian Grammar is also good.

With respect to each author, there will definitely be different perspectives on how to understand Sumerian, such as verbal forms, dimensional prefixes, conjugation prefixes, etc. It's up to you to decide what suits you best. My experience with Thomsen is that some of her explanations are ambiguous and the examples she uses can be overwhelming for a beginner (at least it was for me). There are definitely strengths and weaknesses to each of these grammars. Nonetheless, the resources provided are the basics to understanding the grammar and are no doubt useful and adequate for transcription and translation.

I want to stress that in order to the learn Sumerian grammar you need to work side by side with texts/cuneiform. It's definitely difficult to get a grasp of everything while reading the grammar without having lessons similar to Hughnergard's Grammar of Akkadian to guide you. It would be useful to start out with brick inscriptions and such. This is where John Haye's Manuel of Sumerian Grammar and Texts is useful because it provides lessons and such. I'm also confident you can find this easily. Hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Edit: How can I forget Labat. Definitely essential with understanding the development of sign forms and also provides signs values (French). There's also EPSD, but there are plenty of weaknesses of using this due to a lack of context, but nonetheless useful. Yeah... unfortunately there are a lot of expensive books in this field.

Šulmu, /u/KlingonLinux! I gotchoo on "Canaanite" and Israelite (they were more or less the "same" people religio-culturally for most of Antiquity, and definitely genetically/ethnically) and Punic/Phoenician (Iron Age Levantine ["Canaanite" and Israelite peoples and so on] peoples abroad throughout the Mediterranean as far West as Southern Spain/the island of Ibiza and North Africa) sources, awīlu.

Some necessary clarification : I routinely put "Canaanite" in scare-quotes, because there was no definitive, proto-national much less national identity for so-called "Canaanites" in the way that Israelites and Judahites eventually had by the 1st millennium BCE, and the people of Syro-Palestine during the Middle to Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age would overwhelmingly identify and operate by clan, by tribe, or by city-state before calling themselves and operating as Knaʿni (Ugaritic, meaning "people of Canaan"). "Canaanite" religious forms consonantly varied quite noticeably by city-state, in ways that, say, Egyptian ones did not, even taking into account "alternative" (but not competing) Egyptian local theologies and so on. Speaking in perhaps excessively general terms, there was a State religion overarching the regional ones in Egypt which, in effect, bound them together as a cooperative dynamic unit. "Canaan" as such had no such large-scale, cohesive "religious infrastructure" of Egypt's much less Mesopotamian Kingdoms' and Empires' like, and it didn't "help" that the exceptionally powerful Egyptian Empire of the Late Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Periods and contemporaneous Mesopotamian and Hittite Empires were constantly vying for control of the North Sinai and Syro-Palestine. The economic centers of "Canaan" were, indeed, frequently subservient to Egypt throughout Bronze Age history, with Egyptian Kings investing governors and mayors of its own throughout "Canaanite" territories following the Thutmosid Conquest, much to the personal danger of said governors and mayors (who were neither particularly liked nor trusted by their Levantine subjects nor by Egyptian officials) and much to the cantankerous chagrin of the Levantine peoples living under Egyptian Imperial rule. Which is to say nothing of Egyptian-mandated relocations of restive Levantine people and so forth.

Furthermore, Hebrew Biblical literature intensely confuses what "Canaanite" even means in a religio-cultural sense, using the term simply to inveigh against religious beliefs and conventions, regardless of actual origin, Deuteronomic Jews did not wish to see carry over from their ancestral religion(s)/culture(s) and from neighboring religions/cultures (e.g., Mesopotamian and Egyptian religions/cultures. See Leviticus 18, Deuteronomy 7, and Ezekiel 23 as but three illustrations of the aforementioned) into newly-minted Judaism and what had then become the Israelite-Judahite "national" identities (primarily in politically-motivated defiance, it should be noted, of their later Master, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had made of the internally-fractured Kingdoms of Israel and Judah satellite states through rigorous opportunistic military conquest and serious economic and political strong-arming, beginning with the great and cunning King Tukultī-apil-Ešarra/"Tiglath-Pileser" III). A few scholars and especially many would-be Revivalists not academically-trained frequently, unwittingly hang their understanding of "Canaanite" upon all this confusion -- and the latter not in anything like a Jewish context nor through a Jewish hermeneutic, either, while still treating iffy Jewish accounts embedded in Scripture entirely too literally, which makes it an even more weird and defunct confusion.

Now, it's very important to form a baseline understanding of the historical circumstances of the Near East concerning "Canaan," what came out of it, its influential neighbors, and religio-cultural receptors. I know it feels like unnecessary drudgery to many people, but the religious tidbits don't make much sense and their use in/continued relevance to Modernity can't be adequately evaluated without learning and understanding their historical contexts, which is where a lot of would-be Revivalists go very wrong, in my opinion -- especially since "Canaanite" and other non-Kemetic ANE religious Revivals are still very much in their formative stages and aren't being led by people with necessary, thorough backgrounds in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. For this, I recommend beginning with Donald B. Redford's Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, Marc Van De Mieroop's A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000 to 323 BC, Amanda H. Podany's Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East, and Mark Woolmer's Ancient Phoenicia: An Introduction. They're not short texts, apart from Woolmer's that is, but they will give you a decent, fairly comprehensive understanding of the circumstances of the ANE.

Concerning "Canaanite" and Israelite, etc., religious details and developments, just about anything by Mark S. Smith, Rainer Albertz (namely, this massive text he co-authored with Rüdiger Schmitt), Daniel E. Fleming, and Dennis Pardee are quite sound.

Stories from Ancient Canaan, 2nd Edition edited by Mark S. Smith and Michael D. Coogan is probably where you're looking to start vis-a-vis "Canaanite" religion(s), as most people like to get at the mythic material first and foremost. After that, I would definitely recommend picking up The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Biblical Resource Series), along with Pardee's Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World) and Nicolas Wyatt's Religious Texts from Ugarit -- there should be a free PDF of the latter still floating around the nets somewhere.

While William Foxwell Albright has since become outdated in areas, his works are nevertheless necessary, now "classic" reads. Of particular use and importance is his Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: An Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths

Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan by John Day and the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Second Edition are handy, but relatively scarce and expensive.

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger is a much-beloved scholar of mine, though be aware that in The Riddle of the Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East -- one of the very few decent and comprehensive texts in ANE "comparative religious studies" -- wherein he addresses a few major Levantine Gods like Ba'l-Hadad, he unfortunately demonstrates a very poor comprehension of Greek, so if you ever pick that title up please do remember to take his interpretations in the chapter concerning the Phoenician God Melqart with a metric ton of salt.

Aaron J. Brody's Each Man Cried Out to His God: The Specialized Religion of Canaanite and Phoenician Seafarers was a short, widely-accessible, and enjoyable volume; he covers quite a few lesser-known and under-explored elements of Levantine religions therein.

It sounds like a lot, I'm sure, and there's so much more to read and discuss beyond all these, but hopefully this will provide a decent springboard for you into the crazy, wonderful world of Levantine religions.

I hope this helped, and if you need anything else on this, or concerning Mesopotamia and Egypt, feel free to ask anytime.

Hi I don't know you that well yet but from what I have read you seem very nice and cool and thoughtful and inquisitive and giving so I think you are most like your Groot plushie!

I think the item on my wishlist that is a best representation of me is the funko spiderman cus I feel like I deal with problems in the same way that spiderman/peter parker does (minus the whole webbing and beating them up things). He was practically a kid when he became spider-man and he was adjusting to not only new powers but a whole new life in a way and every day he had to use those power to fight people stronger and bigger than him who were not being very ethical. Parker's coping method was to joke and taunt his enemies during the fight; get them to talk, get them to show emotion and show their humanity and he could understand that they are only human, like him. We step up to our problems even if they appear stronger than ourselves, we joke about them to show they aren't everything and that they doesn't have all the power and then we put on a brave face, face them down, and give them all our best shot.

Also, if you're so into ancient religions especially Egyptian and Babylonian why don't you have this in your wishlist?? http://www.amazon.com/The-Religions-Ancient-Egypt-Babylonia/dp/1497574218/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1427323340&sr=8-3

>What about atheists or theists that believe in different versions of the divine then you?

Believe in what you want.

>Plenty of gods have demanded human sacrifice in the past.

I'd suggest "The Origins and History of Consciousness" by Erich Neumann

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-History-Consciousness-Mythos-Princeton/dp/0691163596/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2VOW29FP6U1R6&keywords=the+origins+and+history+of+consciousness+erich+neumann&qid=1558466061&s=gateway&sprefix=the+origins+and%2Caps%2C172&sr=8-2

>And at what point does the collection of cells in a womb gain that piece of divinity? For some time it is literally a sperm and egg seperate. Are they divine? Or is it only when they combine? When they get more complicated than a hang nail? More complicated than a bug? When it can feel or has a heart? Is it 9k to abort as long as it hasn't reached that divinity yet? If not, is it ok to kill bugs or weeds in your lawn?

All is divine, all is One. That said, there is a cycle of life and death that is divinely ordered that we should partake in. However, we should approach that with divinity as well.

What does it mean to raise animals with their divinity in mind? I suspect it looks a lot more like Joe Saladin and his farming techniques than it does big agra. Recognizing the divinity in all this does not mean that everything must be treated like it is self-conscious (something humans have that animals don't). There is a reason humanity is described as 'in the image of God' and dogs are not... even if our essence is all One.

I've always been interested in it, but I've only just recently started studying (for fun!) about Mesopotamia in earnest. A few books that I've read and enjoyed, in addition to Roux's "Ancient Iraq" and of course Gilgamesh (Andrew George translation):

• Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City by Gwendolyn Lieck. This book examines ten notable cities throughout Mesopotamian history. It is not a comprehensive history book, but instead a "survey" style book which looks at the history, culture, religion, and politics of the individual cities and how they reflect on the region as a whole. The author also provides insight into the history of the excavation and scholarly debate for each city, including discussion of competing theories. Because of this, as well at its approachable style and more limited scope, it makes a good first read to students new to the subject.
  
  
• From Distant Days by Benjamin Foster. This book is (to the best of my understanding) an abridgment of Foster's other work, Before the Muses. While not as comprehensive as the larger work, it is somewhat cheaper and perhaps a little less intimidating. It includes the Creation and Flood myths, among others, as well as large sections of translations of prayers, hymns, proverbs, magic spells, and other categories. The author provides enough insight without bogging the reader down in minutiae.
  
  I hope those are helpful. I'm hoping to get more books in the near future, and will post regarding those as I read them.

I think you are on the right track. There is no need to be nervous but its always best to be as sincere and open as you can when investigating something of this nature.

When I was at a similar point in my life, I was looking at all sorts of Islamophobic materials and it was a complete waste of time. I would go back and forth between the Islamic sites and the phobic ones and invariably there would be a perfectly logical argument against the scientific basis for the factoid in question which could not rule out the 'miraculous' part. The mention of fingerprint in Quran comes to mind.

Ultimately what will decide it for you is your own experience with the source material, i.e. the Quran. 100% of all the material bashing down the Quran is based on less than 0.001% of the book. Forget scholars, forget the hadith, forget anything else and just try and go through the book for yourself. If at the end of it, you dont feel anything and have no use for Islam, I am pretty sure you will be A-Okay. Whats the point of believing in a Just God if He will call you to task in spite of your best efforts?

For me, while I still have doubts over the classical interpretation of some parts, I am convinced of its divine nature.

Read https://www.amazon.com/Losing-My-Religion-Call-Help/dp/1590080270/ for one guy's journey which started and continues with the Quran. He also answers all the common objections.

Also the following two will give good insight in to the nature of early islam and why you should take all the traditional islamic narrative with a grain of salt.

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Muhammad-Challenge-Interpreting-Prophets/dp/1780747829
https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Disrupted-History-Through-Islamic/dp/1586488139/

In any case, be brave and feel confident that whichever way it turns for you, your sincerity guarantees your well being.

I commented in the cross-posted thread. That etymology is different than what I would have suspected, as you can see in my comment. I did not know about the "sky father" myth. I thought that "sky daddy" was just a contemporary anglicization of "Father God" or something like that.

I do like SKY DADDY, though. And there are so many things which resonate with or reference it: Alan Parsons's SIRIUS/Eye in the Sky (the Sirius/Dogon Cosmology and Orion mysteries themselves are extremely interesting Robert Temple and Robert Bauval), Philip K. Dick's book "Eye in the Sky" (PKD was a Gnostic mystic in his later years,) and of course the band which Alan Parsons really got his fame for producing, Pink Floyd, has the classic, timeless "The Great Gig in the Sky" which echoes this sentiment to some degree, but also alludes to a future event foreshadowed everywhere else in pop culture from David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust cosmology to Bradley Nowell and Sublime's "Jailhouse" vision of a great concert "up there" with all of the masters of yore participating. (That is my interpretation of it, anyway.)


Some excerpts of the lyrics to Jailhouse:

>"hat has been told to the wise and up-rooted
>
>is gonna be revealed unto babes and sublime
>
>I know that I'm gonna be there yeah
>
>Bud Gaugh will be singing there
>
>And Eric Wilson will be bangin' up there, yea
>
>And we'll be all singin ... with version, with version,
>
>Reagge version

I should add that I have always had this notion myself of "A rose by any other name ..." with regard to the "creator" God. If this be a computer simulation, or something unlike anything we know, or if "aliens" create everything, whatever, however, a rose by any other name ... They are all the same to us. As Arthur C. Clarke says: "Any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic."

Since we've been waiting for nearly a day for answers in this thread (which is about some of my favorite topics to study), I'm going to list some factors I've read about. I know the mods are strict here, but I'll cite sources for every one of these factors, which I hope will count for something.

• Mesopotamia was much more geographically diverse. When we talk about "ancient Egypt," in terms of geography, we're really just talking about that narrow strip of arable land on the banks of the Nile. The vast majority of Egypt's population seem to have made their living by farming and fishing along that narrow strip, from prehistoric times all the way to the Roman period (and, to some extent, even into the present day). All along that strip of land, yearly floods and other seasonal factors exhibited similar patterns, making it relatively easy to plan harvests, centralize stockpiles and organize distributions of food and other resources all along the Nile. In fact, even nearby cultures - like the Kerma Culture and the Kingdom of Kush - which were genetically, linguistically and (to some extent) religiously distinct from Egypt, also made their livings from the Nile, which may be one reason why Egypt was able to conquer and control these kingdoms at various points in its history. Mesopotamia, on the other hand, was a forested plain bordered by swamps in the south, mountains to the north and east, and deserts to the west. From prehistoric times onward, this geographic diversity seems to have brought people with widely divergent cultures, beliefs and ways of life into conflict over the same pieces of land, where much of the agriculture was achieved by damming and building aqueducts from certain points on the Tigris and Euphrates. While one city reaped a bountiful harvest, a city just up the river might be starving - because when one city enjoyed a plentiful water supply, it was probably at the expense of a city downriver. In fact, the first recorded war in history was fought between the city-states of Lagash and Umma, over just such a water supply.
  
  
• Egypt was unified much earlier. While there's some evidence that Egyptian cities each worshiped their own gods during the prehistoric and proto-historic periods, many processes of linguistic and cultural unification seem to have taken place much earlier than in Mesopotamia - probably sometime between 6,000 and 3,000 BCE. In other words, Egypt most likely did go through an extensive period of immigration, city-state rules, warfare and unification - we just know very little about this process because most of it occurred before the invention of writing. All the large-scale cross-cultural migrations and wars were most likely wrapped up by the time of the pharaoh Menes (possibly the same person as Narmer) around 3,000 BCE. Mesopotamia, on the other hand, was still receiving massive immigrations of foreign peoples as late as the 500s BCE, and even later. This region was arguably truly unified for the first time under the Neo-Assyrian Empire throughout the 800s BCE, and was brought under more scrupulous (and less harsh) administrative control by the Achaemenid Persian Empire from the 500s to 300s BCE. So in that sense, Mesopotamia and Egypt didn't "start at similar times" - Egypt's processes of immigration and unification began much earlier, and were largely completed by the time Mesopotamian city-states really started waging war - and the new invention of writing was able to document those processes.
  
  
  
• Mesopotamia was more culturally and politically diverse. Because of these ongoing waves of immigration, there was a lot of trade, warfare, and cultural mingling going on from very early periods in Mesopotamia - and each group seems to have held onto certain cultural elements (languages, clothing and grooming styles) well into the historical period. Although groups like the Sumerians and Akkadians lived in the same cities and intermarried, they were each proud of their distinct languages and styles of dress. Meanwhile, other groups like the Elamites (based in what's now Iran, though not an Indo-Iranian people), the Kassites, the Hittites, the Assyrians, and many others, swept in from the geographical fringes at various times, sometimes ruling for a few hundred years; sometimes conquering, falling, and reconquering across thousands of years. Even the famous Babylonian king Hammurabi was the descendant of a foreign Amorite conqueror. While Egypt certainly fought with the peoples on its borders - most notably the Libyans (Libu), the Kushites, the Hittites and the Sea Peoples - and these peoples sometimes conquered and ruled Egypt (the 25th dynasty of Nubian Kushite pharaohs; the 23rd dynasty of Libyan Meshwesh pharaohs, and of course the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty), Egyptian culture seems to have conquered these peoples as much as they conquered Egypt: the invaders seem to have adopted Egyptian fashions and religion, and followed the basic protocols of pharaonic rule. Many of them even seem to have adopted the Egyptian language - except for the Ptolemaic rulers, who (with the exception of Cleopatra) insisted on speaking only Greek at court.
  
  As with many distinctions in history, these aren't cut-and-dried. Egypt actually did exhibit quite a lot of cultural, political and religious variation throughout the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms; large swathes of Mesopotamia were unified under single rulers (Sargon of Akkad, Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi, for example) for a century or two, here and there; and remarkably diverse groups of people (Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites and many others) seem to have lived in relative peace in many Mesopotamian cities.
  
  But the short answer to your question, based on sources I've read, is that the factors above are some of the most commonly cited reasons why Mesopotamia is perceived as more politically unstable than Egypt.
  
  Sources:
  
  
• Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East by Michael Roaf
  
• Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians by Virginia Schomp
  
• The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character by Samuel Noah Kramer
  
• Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek
  
• The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest by Seton Lloyd
  
• Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

It sounds like you have an Intro Geology book.

For a nice overview of historical geology, I was enraptured by "The Earth: An Intimate History" by Richard Fortey. It starts slow but delves into the major developments and ideas of geology as the author visits many significant locales around the world.

Stephen Jay Gould was a very prolific science-writer across paleontology and evolution.

John McPhee has several excellent books related to geology. I would recommend "Rising from the Plains" and "The Control of Nature."

Mark Welland's book "SAND" is excellent, covering topics of sedimentology and geomorphology.

If you are interested in how society manages geologic issues, I would recommend Geo-Logic, The Control of Nature mentioned before, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and Cadillac Desert.

These are some of the texts I used in university:

• Nesse's Introduction to Mineralogy
  
• Winter's Principles of Metamorphic and Igneous Petrology
  
• Twiss and Moore's Structural Geology
  
• Bogg's Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
  
• Burbank and Anderson's Tectonic Geomorphology
  
• Davis's Statistics and Data Analysis in Geology
  
• Burbank and Anderson's Tectonic Geomorphology
  
• Fetter's Applied Hydrogeology
  
• White's Geochemistry (pdf online)
  
• Shearer's Seismology
  
• Copeland's Communicating Rocks
  

(EDIT: I read your post too quickly, and thought you were asking for textbook recommendations, my apologies. i'll leave my reply here anyways, in case it's helpful for someone. Sorry!)

I just finished teaching western civ 1 with this textbook, and it worked very well. The book is organized around a simple theoretical framework (Michael Mann's Sources of Social Power), and focuses on themes of imperial power / resistance which helps to structure the vast amount of material it covers. The students really liked it, and it told a strong enough narrative that I was able to focus most of the time together in the classroom on in-depth case studies and primary source discussion.

The book focuses mostly on Neo Assyria through early Islam, so you have to supplement on either end if your course has more chronological coverage (I added a week on early Babylon and Egypt, and then dug deeply into Neo-Assyria and Persia, Greece, and Rome for the rest of the semester - for which this book was ideally suited).

And it's pretty inexpensive, easy to unde and the students said good things about it in my evaluations.

Cline and Graham. Ancient Empires (Cambridge University Press: 2011).

History of science books are 80% of what I read, and Bryson's book was great, but many of the books that I'm seeing here are oddly not close to Bryson's in terms of style or content.

Just off the top of my head, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers would probably be an excellent read. It has been awhile, but I remember Lost Discoveries was along a similar vein with a similarly light writing style. How I Killed Pluto is pretty fun as well, although it veers off into personal stuff as well.

Thanks for your questions. As to the first, the whole issue of why the four palaces (Daba, Qatna, Alalakh, and Kabri) chose to decorate with Aegean-style art is an interesting one which we have explored in a couple of articles to date, but it is as yet unclear. I would refer you to an article we published in AJA, which can be found here and another in a conference volume here (follow the bibliography found in the footnotes to articles by other scholars).

As for your second question, there is quite a bit of discontinuity, in my opinion, and so I’m not at all surprised that you start with the Neo-Assyrians. In the book Ancient Empires (see it here), Mark Graham and I put the Bronze Age Empires into Chapter One “Prelude to the Age of Ancient Empires” and then began Chapter Two with the Neo-Assyrians…

Third question: yes, 1177 BC is an attempt to make this material accessible to a wider audience. But I'm not sure exactly what you are asking in terms of "what has your experience been with that?" If you mean how has it been received, it seems to have worked pretty well; my colleagues seem to appreciate that I told things as they are, without beating a particular drum, and the general public seems to like learning about the Late Bronze Age, though some have complained on Amazon that there are too many names and dates and that I didn't give them a definitive answer for why the Late Bronze Age collapse occurred. Yes; guilty as charged — welcome to ancient history, I would say to them! I enjoy trying to make ancient history and archaeology accessible, though it is essential to keep publishing scholarly articles at the same time.

Fourth question: yes, I think is authentic, but I would not put it past Schliemann to have “touched it up a bit”..that beard looks suspiciously Victorian, doesn’t it?

And last, my first “great” find was a small bronze statuette of the Greek god Pan, which was part of a furniture decoration probably from a chair. I found it at Tel Anafa in Israel, on the very first dig that I ever went on.

It's time once again for the AskHistorians Book Giveaway! Our lucky winner this month is Vlad! The selection of books we have available this month are:

• Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, recommended by /u/freedmanspatrol.
  
  
• Hayden White's The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, recommended by /u/NMW.
  
  
• Jonathan Harris's The Lost World of Byzantium, recommended by /u/shlin28.
  
  
• Tamim Ansary's Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, my recommendation
  
  Want a chance to get a free book? Help support the podcast via Patreon!

First off, it sounds like you are respectful of her beliefs and want to to be kind, which is the way to go if you want to keep the relationship healthy.

People believe because they want to believe, not because they went through and systematic philosophical analysis. People also get insulted when you psychoanalyze them, wrt their religious beliefs or otherwise.

I don't think you need to explain anything. Either you have faith or you don't. And you just don't.

But should anyone want to do apologetics at you, stepping out of the framework entirely is the way to go, imo. (I wouldn't do this with a girlfriend because you probably want to keep getting along with her and this is a very emotional thing.)

You know that the scientific method, while not perfect, is the best tool we have for understanding the universe. Well, religion is just another thing going on in the universe that scientists study. There are tons and tons of books on where, how, and why the cult of Yahweh emerged and developed. They even have study Bibles annotated with real historical and cultural context.

I recently went through a Mesopotamia phase and read a bunch of stuff and I would recommend A History of the Ancient Near East by Van De Mieroop.

One of the best resources I’ve found for Mesopotamian mythology is the book Treasures of Darkness. It’s a bit dense relying heavy on translated source material but one of the most insightful reads on the topic. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia is another good one that is more of a general examination on the topic and has an easier-to-read narrative structure.

Do you have academic credentials? There are a couple papers on Gilgamesh I have in mind but they’re behind a paywall. Here’s a open-source analysis (direct link to pdf-it’s clean) that touches upon some of the themes I mentioned and could be of interest in building out your world.

Edit: I’m just remembering that the Mesopotamian god names are used in Forgotten Realms(sorry it’s been a while). Some aspects which have been altered to fit into the alignment grid but much of their core remains intact. Reading up on their mythological counterparts will provide a lot more nuisance than the DnD source material.

I am Catholic and learned most of what I know about Islam though university classes and independent research. I can give you a list of books I have read about Islam that will get you started.

Oxford English Koran
Obviously the primary text is important to have and the book is pretty small. Much smaller compared to the bible.



Hadith of Bukhari: Volumes I, II, III & IV


Half of Islamic law is derived from the Koran and the other half from the Hadith. The Hadith is the collection of events, and quotes by Mohammad and his followers. This book is huge and you shouldn't try to read the whole since it is just list quotes and who they are by. But it is a good reference source and something to page through.

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
Biography of Mohammad using historical sources. Good reference.



Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes



Brief 350 page run of Islamic history until now as told by a Muslim. I felt the book was a bit preachy and accusatory towards the end but I read it 6 years ago so my memory might be hazy. Still a good read if you want to try to understand how mainstream moderate Muslim scholars see things. It has a good bibliography too.




There are probably a bunch of other ones I am forgetting. Take a look through Amazon and see what else they have. I would only buy books from university presses or published by academics though. They can be dense and difficult but they are peer reviewed which is important since there is so much anti-Islam, pro-Islam publishing out there.

Let me recommend to you Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. The author is a fantastic writer (as well as a narrator, the audio book is quite good), as well as being from a devout Afghan sufi family. He gives a thorough account of the intellectual and philosophical traditions of the Islamic world couched within the frame of historical events from the pre-islamic world up to modern day.

It's a good read and goes into what so unsettled the Islamic world into fundamentalism.

I forgot to add this in my other comment (which focused on academic books), but if you want a really easy but informative/accessible read, perhaps comparable to Lesley Hazleton's book, you might want to check out Tamim Ansary's Destiny Disrupted, which is a history of the world through Islamic eyes (not exclusively focused on Shi'ism) though. I'd recommend the audiobook specifically, as it's read by the author.

> I already read that one, what is wrong with that one??

I recently purchased Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible translation, which he translated with the goal of maintaining the literary characteristics of the original Hebrew. He made a snarky comment that was something along the lines of "The authors of the KJV had an amazing grasp of the English language, but not so much biblical Hebrew, while modern translations have an amazing grasp of biblical Hebrew, but not so much English." For a casual read, IMO, whatever speaks to you is fine, but you need to be aware the KJV is not the most accurate.

As for your quest for a text, I am not one of the scholars here, but I found this book approachable: A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC.

Unfortunately, a lot of the readings on the topic are not widely available to the public, since they are in Archaeology and History journal articles. I read a lot of this stuff in university.

However, if you want to get into the Late Bronze Age in general, there are a few really good resources available to the general public.

1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed is a great survey of the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations in the Near East. It's great for understanding just how complex and interconnected the world of the 12th century B.C. and earlier was.

A History of the Ancient Near East by van de Mieroop, and

The Ancient Near East by James Pritcherd both present an overview of the Ancient Near East, though both go into what is considered 'Classical' Near East as well.

Also, anything by Trevor Bryce, is worth a read, especially his work on the Hittites.

By who? We're told by our media that it's basically the Shi'as vs. the Sunnis. Anyone who picks up a book on Islam and Islamic history will see that there is more to Islam and Muslims than a bullet point summary.

Yes, the vast majority of Muslims are Sunni. They're divided into 4 schools of Islamic thought, Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali. The Shi'ites aren't a sect by themselves. 13% of Muslims in the world are Shi'i, and they're divided into further sects such as the Twelvers, the Zaidis, the Ismailis, Alawites, etc. 80% of those 13% of Shi'ites are Twelvers. Then you have the Ibadi sect, which is roughly 1% of all Muslims, mostly concentrated in Oman and pockets in North Africa.

Those are the traditional sects, the newer "sects" consist of Salafis, Ikhwani fundamentalists, Progressives, Secularists, etc. Most of these newer sects are more of a response to the political situation in the Muslim world over the past 100 years or so. Almost all the newer sects were born towards the end of the colonial era to the present era.

If you want to have a comprehensive view of Islam that is easy to read and understand for a non-Muslim, I would suggest reading Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

If you don't want to read a book, then check out r/Islam's wiki page that covers this topic in a well written and easy to understand manner

http://www.reddit.com/r/islam/wiki/theology#wiki_what_are_the_sects_of_islam.3F

Yeah, I was just making a stupid joke.

As for the Islamic view of Genghis Khan, it depends on perspective. Genghis Khan was tolerant of Muslims and even sought after their intellectuals. But he also destroyed their populations. A lot of the estimates of the deaths caused by Genghis Khan's conquest are exaggerated, but that doesn't really affect the perception in much of the Muslim world. There are also a lot of dubious claims as to Genghis Khan's brutality.

It's true, from any perspective, that the Mongol conquest put an end to a long period of Muslim prosperity. Since the days of Mohammed, they had seen very few serious military losses. The common belief among Muslims prior to Genghis Khan was that their prosperity and military success was undeniable proof of the validity of their beliefs. They felt that Allah had blessed them with the ability to win battles and spread their religion. So Genghis Khan turned their world upside down.

All of my understanding of Genghis Khan and Muslim history come from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, both of which I highly recommend.

Not OP, just someone who likes reading about other cultures.

I really like Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.

It's a nice change of pace from the Euro-centric, Christian-centric history of US schools. It's also a really good read.

This thread.

I'll see myself out.

I just finished Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Interesting look at how the muslim world sees itself.

Now I'm reading A Short History of Nearly Everything. It's pretty fun for us Lib Arts peasants.

Yeah, gotta read about that event more sometimes as well. I like the anecdote of how the Khan took the Caliph to Baghdad's treasure chamber after taking the city and saw the chamber full of gold. The Khan said "you didn't use all this to save your people from me?" and locked the Caliph in the chamber to starve.

An anecdote that didn't happen I think, but a cool portrayal about the difference of nomadic and settled peoples.

I might've read it from here, it's a good book: http://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Disrupted-History-Through-ebook/dp/B005EYEPB2

Interesting article, and an important topic that is not usually well understood when people talk about the issues we're facing in regards to our overuse of resources which replenish on timescales well above human lifetimes. I recommend Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations for anyone who is interested in a more in depth introduction to this topic.

If you are interested in erosion and desertification, you might enjoy the book "Dirt" by David Montgomery. It's written for the general public, and it's fascinating. http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520272900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421884885&sr=8-1&keywords=dirt

> You need to imagine the Tiber stuffed with barges and rafts, bringing wood and produce from the mountains and going between Rome and Ostia.

I would be very interested to hear any interesting facts about the failure of the Tiber and port of Ostia as major economic avenues. Didn't the port get silted up as a result of Roman agriculture in the Tiber valley eroding the soils into the delta? Dirt: Erosion of Civilizations has had my attention for some time, and we have had similar effects in America that interest me.

> And agricultural manuals devote a great deal of time to "non-staple" products such as fruit, vines, olives, cattle, and even fish.

Have you ever heard of "cultura promiscua?" That is the only name I know for the early Roman horticultural practice before plantations. They mixed grains and vegetables in the shade of trees. Then they grazed animals in the groves and grew vines on the trees. Quite a few of the better-known authors rail on about how that method had been supplanted by a deleterious method. Today we have found out how to make "food forests" in the /r/Permaculture movement, but I think I will have to learn Italian or go to Italy to find out exactly what the ancient Romans grew, and how, to popularize the knowledge.

>What's your background, if I may - I'm familiar with some of the historical eras but this stuff is new to me!

I don't have one, just a personal interest in history, especially the classical and earlier eras.

I can suggest this book if you're interested in pre-classical mesopotamia. It's both highly informative and written in a way that's very readable with lots of entertaining anecdotes.

It's been a while but I think the palace economy stuff I read was in another book here I have about the invasion of the sea peoples and the collapse of the bronze age global order (muh globalism!). I can't recommend that book as its really dry and comes to no real conclusion, but you can probably find good books on that era if you go searching for stuff related to sea people.

this is a great book on the history of islam, egagingly written as an introduction to the religion and its history for casual readers. he writes with pretty much no bias. highly recommended.

Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary. Easy read, consistently interesting, and a good primer for anyone looking to learn about Islamic history.

Sure. In no specific order:

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4


None of these are specifically Biblical history, as I'm sure you'll quickly gather. To fully grasp the Old Testament, however, there are a few important areas that one must be strong in (in my humble opinion, that is): Ancient Near East history, and the New Testament, and a general understanding of Judaism and its individual history.

Get The Sumerians
Here is a free summary
This is actual documented history, proof that the Bible, Torah & Quran are just derivatives of an even more ancient rich culture who had a polytheistic mythology.

Check out Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations for sore really interesting history on this.

The same author has a second book - Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life which is possibly the most hopeful, uplifting, and practical book I’ve ever read on agriculture or the environment.

Highly recommend both!

Sorry for your disappoint. However, you STILL might find some historical writing pretty fascinating. Try reading Inanna, Goddess of Heaven and Earth or Sumerians, might just be what you're looking for.

"Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes"

>In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe-a place it long perceived as primitive and disorganized-had somehow hijacked destiny.

It's truly a classic, a must-read and it's on Amazon for 10 bucks.

Women and Gender in Islam by Leila Ahmed

Excellent book I'd highly recommend reading it for your paper.

I really liked eminent medievalist Norman Cantor's short and pithy "Antiquity": http://www.amazon.com/Antiquity-Birth-Sumerian-Civilization-Empire/dp/0060930985/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2; He starts off with really nice, short "narrative" chapters, and then goes into slightly more detail. After that I'd follow others' advice and do each ancient civilization somewhat separately.

Thank you very much. I think my professor's source was Ansary's Destiny Disrupted, which we've been reading as a sort of overview of Islamic history. I'm enjoying it, although it doesn't profess to be a history book exactly.

There's a fascinating book called Lost Discoveries that tells all about the surprising non-European, non-Greek origins of mathematics. EDIT: Corrected link formatting.

These are Amazon affiliate links. Don't hate me for them.

• In Defense of Elitism
  
  
• The Family of Man
  
  
• Antiquity: From the Birth of Sumerian Civilization to the Fall of the Roman Empire (This is a really good but brief history book)
  
  
• Tao of Jeet Kune Do
  
  
• The Complete Soapmaker

Seconding Kramer, that guy is THE authority on Sumerian Myths. I only recently got my hands on 'Myths of Enki, The Crafty God' If your local college library has a copy go check it out. It had one printing and as far as I'm aware was never digitized... so it costs this much now. https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Enki-Crafty-Samuel-Kramer/dp/0195055020

On the other side... The pagan gods in the Slavic regions were largely stamped out by Christianity, and as far as I know we don't have much in the way of primary source on strict religious beliefs. Not to say we don't have a MASSIVE body of Russian folklore/legend/myth, because we do. It's just hard to parse out a complete mythology because of the thick layer that christianity laid down in the region. You'll still see mentions of Perun and other 'gods' or In some instances Jesus having facets that were thought to be attributed to one god or another. Jack V. Haney is the primary authority in the English speaking world - he's done some good translation(s) of Afanas'ev, who was the Russian equivalent of the Grim brothers. As well as a massive collection which encompasses the entire Aarne Thompson classification index(!).

I also think Guns, Germs and Steel is good.
Try Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansaray for a view of the Islamic perspective on history from 600 a.d. to present. It's a perspective that I think is very important to be familiar with today.

Babylon, by Paul Kriwaczek
Covers earliest Mesopotamia up to the Babylonian age. Not necessarily a resource book, but an enjoyable read that really gives a feel for the time/place.

In no particular order:

http://www.amazon.com/Beirut-Jerusalem-Thomas-L-Friedman/dp/1250015499

http://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making-ebook/dp/B00BH0VSPI/ref=zg_bs_4995_5

http://www.amazon.com/My-Promised-Land-Triumph-Tragedy-ebook/dp/B009QJMXI8/ref=zg_bs_4995_4


http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553/ref=zg_bs_4995_10

http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-Thought-Liberal-Age-1798-1939/dp/0521274230/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3

http://www.amazon.com/History-Arab-Peoples-Albert-Hourani/dp/0446393924/ref=cm_lmf_tit_4

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Gender-Islam-Historical-Modern/dp/0300055838/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Modern-Studies-Eastern-History/dp/0195134605/ref=cm_lmf_tit_10

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805068848/ref=cm_lmf_tit_17


As a non-Muslim, non-Jew, non-Arab, non-Semite, American, and having read these (yay strict immigrant parents!) and some other histories, as well as having had the attacks of 9/11 give me a neurosis about following the news in the Middle East/Central/South Asia as regards potential US involvement and issues:


A lot feels familiar to me, some of it even seems like stuff I know a good deal about, and a few things about "The Middle East" which is a massively rich and complex sociopolitical place and slice of humanity are things I'd consider myself very well read on.


And I don't know shit.


I can tell you as a native born American and US voter what I think my country's policies (in a limited, broad strokes sense) should be - - - but beyond that, there's very little I've ever seen as conclusive and firm coming from anyone who by dint of identity didn't have 'skin in the game' .

It's not explicitly about the conflict in the Middle East, but Destiny Disrupted provides a ton of good context for the Islamic perspective.

it's a long story, but it's inclusive of but not limited to a lot of very hard archaeological and anthropological data..

Start here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sirius-Mystery-Scientific-Evidence/dp/089281750X

then go here
http://www.amazon.com/The-Science-Dogon-Decoding-Tradition/dp/1594771332/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

then go learn about the Sirius connection to the pharaonic mystery cults and to freemasonry. Why are the dog days so important in the masonic tradition ?

Then start tracking the Sirius connection into the dark occult forces that currently run our society.

"Kenneth Grant, one of Crowley's closest associates in the Ordo Templi Orientis, repeatedly links Crowley with Sirius and seems to be hinting that the 'Holy Guardian Angel' contacted by Crowleyan mind-expansion techniques is a denizen of Sirius. J.G. Bennett, one of the closest of George Gurdjieff's associates, also tells us of coded references to Sirius in Gurdjieff's writings. Sufi historian Indries Shah traces the name of the Illuminati back to a verse in the Koran which mentions a shining star, and Crowley's alternative name for the Illuminati was the Order of the Silver Star (Argentum Astrum)."

• Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger
  

book: destiny disrupted.

Read this book, nothing to lose.

https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Disrupted-History-Through-Islamic-ebook/dp/B005EYEPB2

Tutkittavaa on jäljellä ihan valtava määrä. Lähi-idässä on monia aikansa suurkaupunkeja joita ei ole vielä edes löydetty, puhumattakaan pienemmistä kohteista. Historiallista ainesta tutkimista odottamassa siellä on edelleen ihan käsittämätön määrä. Meillä ei tosiaankaan ole mitään hyvin tarkkaa kuvaa muinaishistoriasta, vaan tulkinnat perustuvat monesti hyvin rajalliseen aineistoon, ja aukkoja on valtavat määrät.

Asiaa ei auta, että viimeiset parikymmentä vuotta lähi-idässä on sattuneesta syystä ollut aika haastavaa järjestää kaivauksia. Kun sota tuhoaa ja paikalliset ryöstävät muinaisaarteita, kaikki odottelu tarkoittaa menetettyä tietoa. Siksi alueilla, joissa voidaan kaivaa, on kiire saada asioita aikaiseksi.

Mitä hyötyä näitä asioita sitten on tutkia? Varmasti voitaisiin jatkaa samaan malliin vaikkei kukaan tutkisi enää yhtään enempää muinaishistoriaa. Omasta mielestäni jo se, että on tietoa, jota emme tunne, on syy tutkia sitä. Ei voi olla mahdollista ymmärtää miksi maailma tänään näyttää siltä, miltä näyttää, ellei ymmärrä mm. lähi-idässä vuosituhansia sitten sattuneita tapahtumia. Näiden asioiden lukeminen ihan jo maallikkona antaa paljon perspektiiviä maailmaan. Itse koen ymmärtäväni esim. juutalaisuuden(ja sitä kautta kristinuskon ja islamin) syntyä paremmin, koska ymmärrän vähän sitä kontekstia, missä se tapahtui. Myös lukeminen siitä, kuinka tuhansia vuotta sitten kuolleet hallitsijat tärkeilivät omilla saavutuksillaan pistää miettimään miten kritiikittä nykyäänkin suhtaudumme ajatukseen yksittäisten ihmisten erityisestä tärkeydestä.

Toiseen kysymykseen voi vastata, että ala ei ole missään hyvin rahoitettua. Siksipä laadukkaista tutkijoista pitäisi pitää kiinni, mistä tahansa niitä löytyykin. Ei siitä välttämättä suoraa rahallista hyötyä ole, mutta tieto karttuu, ja kukaties sen myötä ymmärrys ja sivistys.

Jos oikeasti mietit, mitä hyötyä koko huuhaasta on, mikset lukisi asiaan liittyen itse? Helpompi päättää onko asia hyödyllinen, kun sitä tuntee vähän.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-3000-323-Blackwell-World/dp/111871816X

Ylläoleva on aika helppolukuinen ja hyvä yleiskatsaus aiheeseen jos asia lainkaan kiinnostaa.

I haven't read these books so i don't know how well they are:

• [Books] The first four Caliphs and Sahabah - Collection of books online on the first caliphs, and stories of the companions of the prophet (pbuh).
  
  
  
  Be sure to also check out Yasir Qadhi's audio lectures:
  
  
• [Videos] Lives of the Khulafaa - Yasir Qadhi, detailed series of videos starting from the the first caliph and onward.
  
  A couple other books:
  
  
• [Book] Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes - Tamim Ansary, for people looking for a comprehensive-but-approachable way to look at world history through the lens of Islam.
  
  
  
• [Book] Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilization from the Past - Concise summary of Islamic history by Firas Alkhateeb. Covers various aspects of Muslim contributions to the world. Recommended by MuslimMatters.org

Permaculture: A Designer's Manual is considered the bible for permaculture because of how comprehensive it is and how much information is packed into that book. It won't explain all of the effective strategies for different climates that we've developed over the last 30 years but I would definitely start there for the foundation. Then move on to books on topics that are specific to a particular topic within permaculture design.

​

My Recommendations:

• Permaculture: A Designers Manual - https://www.permaculturedesignersmanual.com/product-page/permaculture-a-designers-manual
  
• Gaia's Garden - https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298
  
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond - https://www.amazon.com/Rainwater-Harvesting-Drylands-Beyond-2nd/dp/0977246434
  
• dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520272900
  
• The New Wild: Why Invasive Species will be Nature's Salvation - https://www.amazon.com/New-Wild-Invasive-Species-Salvation/dp/0807039551
  
• The Worm Farmer’s Handbook: Mid- to Large-Scale Vermicomposting for Farms, Businesses, Municipalities, Schools, and Institutions - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603587799/
  
• The Humanure Handbook, 4th Edition: Shit in a Nutshell - https://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-4th-Shit-Nutshell/dp/0964425882

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (amazon.com) is probably the single most depressing book I've read in the past 10 years. On the time span of about 100 to 200 years we (the 7-11 billion of us) are pretty much screwed by the agricultural soil erosion issue alone.

The problem is that most readily available books are written through the lens of 9/11. That's what people want to read about, and that is what is on authors' minds. 9/11 is one link in the chain.

Older books that take a more in-depth approach are difficult to find or very expensive.

Jihad In Classical And Modern Islam: A Reader is a book that takes a broader approach but is difficult to find. The edition I read was from the mid-90s.

A good recent book is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

I agree with this review:

>The European outline of history has always been the westward succession of leadership, from Greece to Rome to northern Europe to America, a viewpoint of manifest destiny that has justified much imperialism and jingoism. An Islamic history, Ansary says, would be an expansion from a center, rather like ripples spreading from the event of the Hijra in 622 AD, an expansion that should have been destined to encompass the whole world. For the first thousand years of this history, it was perfectly plausible for the most educated classes of Islamic societies to maintain such a viewpoint, Ansary maintains. But then that 'destiny' was disrupted by the unforeseen economic and technological revolutions of the rude barbarians of Europe. Such a perception of history, as a calamitous disruption of the proper order of things, underlies the resentment and hostility of Muslims throughout the Middle World toward the West.

and

>The second half of the book depicts the delayed, astonished, dismayed recognition throughout the Middle World that the despised barbarians of the West had stolen history, thwarted destiny, invaded and infiltrated and corrupted - yes! corrupted! - Islamic civilization. Ansary's analyses of European developments will surely seem simplistic and imbalanced to readers with detailed knowledge of their own cultural history, but then perhaps that's how it all looks from another world. More significant for American readers will be his accounts of the evolution of various responses in Islam to the pressures of westernization, ranging from secularism to fanaticism.

Had I reviewed that book I would have written something nearly identical.

TL;DR: no, there's no drugs or shamanism. Think more modern Wiccan ceremony and less ancient Shamanistic trance-journey.

Long form: The aspects of Shamanism we're familiar with - the trance state, the "journey" to the "spirit world," the separation of spirit-body and physical body -- those are NOT written about as part of Temple practice. And all we have left of Old Babylon is:

• What was written down by the privileged, educated scribal and religious elite, and only then what survived the millennia after leaving their hands, and
  
  
• What remained of their everyday belief system as manifested centuries and millennia in Late Antiquity, from which period far more data, but also far more confusion and contradiction, survives.
  
  Some facts about Ancient Mesopotamian Magic, as we know it now:
  
  
• What we know about was practiced BY rich people (Temple elite, who spent years in education preparing for the vocation - think PhD or MD doctors), FOR rich people (kings, nobles, wealthy folks who could afford Temple services)
  
  
• The beliefs of the elite are all we have, and they are highly regimented, elaborate and official-seeming, and directly related to current real-world political structure. The Temple priests were part of the ruling class, and had an interest in creating an orthodox religious practice that reflected social order.
  
  
• In Jacobsen's The Treasures of Darkness there's a clear explanation of the evolution of the religious pantheon imagined as first familial figures, then as political leaders, and later as kings and emperors as the centuries progressed. Always, the Gods in Heaven are a reflection of the leaders on Earth. The magic practiced reflects that, and often calls upon the Gods as authority figures to justify magical action. First the Gods are parents asked to help their suffering children. Later, they're judges, legal witnesses, and ethical arbiters. Not very Shamanistic, which is a lot more grassroots, and anarchic. Shamanism is about the practitioner and the community. Mesopotamian magic is about the King, the needful citizen, and the theory of a complex, cosmopolitan society.
  
  
• We have no evidence of a popular or "grassroots" practice from the most ancient Mesopotamian cultures, except in so far as that ordinary people did seek out formal Temple services, and there were consumer-grade services for the lower classes. Long story short, the Temple definitely didn't do trances or drugs, and we've not got any indication that ordinary folks did it either.
  
  
• Furthermore, when we get better records, and see survivels of Babylonian magic as part of contemporary Hellenic culture, all of those trappings are still of high Temple magic. They're often degraded forms of formerly precise scholarship, like fake Cuneiform amulets that don't say anything but gibberish, but are made by a local craftsman to resemble Temple-produced amulets (which would have been highly specific, like a doctor's prescription) from a bygone era.
  
  
• Unlike in contemporary Shamanism, we have no evidence of any belief in Babylon of spirit worlds, spirit journeys, or altered states of consciousness. There's myth cycles like Inanna's descent into the underworld, but there's a clear, regimented divide between "Heaven," Earth, and "The Underworld." The Underworld is where the Underworld Gods live, BTW. It's not the land of dead humans, which is basically a shitty local existence, located literally under your house. There's no extra parallel spirit world.
  
  
• Unlike in contemporary Shamanism, there's no mention in any of the surviving ritual texts of drug use, or anything that could even sound like a hallucination. Priests are technical practitioners, who are expected to be completely in control, and complete elaborate and highly-choreographed rituals with precision and everything in the right order. A ritual is more like a court case punctuated with symbolic magical performances and a lot of emotional potery.
  
  
• And unlike in Shamanism, there's no separate "spirit world" where the spirits live their own lives separate from ours. There don't seem to be animist or nature spirits at all. There are Gods, who are rulers by virtue of having created humanity and the world. Some, like Lammashtu, are actually pretty dangerous and anti-humanity. Some, like Ea, are very pro-human. Some, like Shamash, just have a job to do - watch everything, and mete out justice. Demons are also of divine origin - they're the go-fers of the Gods. Demons can be sent by pro-human Gods to chase away anti-human Gods. OR they can be sent by justice-loving Gods to punish human evil or thoughtlessness.
  
  
• And your ancestors are in the land of the dead, and need your attention and gifts of food and drink, or they'll starve and thirst. If you forget them, or if there's no one left to care for them, they go crazy with hunger, betrayal, and loneliness, and start to wander. They're the wild "spirits" of the desert, representative of the places outside the city walls where human law and civilization hasn't tamed. They wander around lost and attack anyone in reach. They can't remember who they are.
  
  
• Unlike in Shamanism, where there's a separate place for the dead humans to go, the Land of the Dead is imagined as a sort of eternal waiting room. You just sit under the house, and it sucks, and you slowly forget everything. It's actually pretty depressing. In contrast to the vibrant, well-populated and multi-layered spirit worlds of nature-oriented Shamanisms worldwide, the afterlife of Ancient Babylon is a TV stuck on a dead channel.
  
  
• All of the really good action in Mesopotamia is therefore right here in the city -- the important stuff happens in society and civilization, and in the living human world. Just like there's no civilization or safety outside of the city walls, there's no greater world to be a part of spiritually, either. There's literally no greener grass on the other side of the fence -- just wild animal attacks and chaotic-ghost metaphors. There's no chance of humans dwelling in a summertime paradise or going to live with the Gods (they are distant kings and queens, far above us -- they don't like us enough to invite us home!) in Heaven, or getting punished in the Underworld. (They don't wait to punish you - they'll send you a headache or an illness or kill your livestock right the hell now). While Shamanism tries to attain access to a spiritual plane, there's no point or benefit to that in Mesopotamian practice. It's all about the here and now.
  
  
  Basically, ANE magic is the remedy to solve every problem, because they didn't have a lot of other tools. This translation of Mesopotamian ritual texts, myths, and prayers provides a good layperson's overview of the way "magic" was used. Sometimes, it's ritual, sometimes prayer. Sometimes it's just a quick incantation to describe, and therefore get control over, a problem.
  
  "Apotropaic" is the popular term for Babylonian magic -- almost every instance we have is a prayer or ritual intended to ward off, or turn away, a negative consequence or negative events: everything from passing gas (yes, there's an incantation against breaking wind in the Foster book..) to being convicted in a harsh court system, to illness, death, and actual magical attacks by sorcerers.
  
  Its principles most strongly resemble those of modern western "Ceremonial Magic," minus the Christianity. There's ritual recitations, specific times of the day or night to do certain actions, there's many of Isaac Bonewits's Principles of Magick
  
  To remove a magic curse, you rub the patient with an onion, to get the bad juju in the human to sync up with the onion. Then, you slowly peel the onion, stating that as you peel the layers off the onion, the curse is also being peeled away from the patient. The onion can control the curse, is an effective "handle" by which to "grab" the curse, because it's been put into physical contact with the curse-ee. So as you peel the onion and burn the layers, you can say that you're also removing the curse from the human that the onion represents. When the onion's all burnt, so's the curse! That's the principle of Contagion from Bonewits, or just another day at Temple in Babylon.
  
  To destroy an unknown sorcerer's curse on you, attack the sorcerer, of course. But if you don't know who they are, make a statue (two statutes, a man and a woman, just to cover all the possible cases!), and announce that these statues are your witch or warlock, and that burning them "burns" the real person who cursed you. Bonewits' Sympathetic Principle, or top of the line Mesopotamian evil-fighting technology.
  
  So that was a lot of words to say, basically, NO, there's no drug use, no shamanism, no trance states, and no real dietary restrictions before rituals (though Maqlu requires a ritual bath, I think?).
  
  Your shaman buddies who say "no pork before ritual" are actually pulling that out of their asses, probably basing it on generic cultural prejudices against pork absorbed from religious culture.
  
  Many traditional shamanisms use starvation to create a ritual trance, but taboo foods are 100% arbitrary in all of those systems. Taboo drugs may well be for practical reasons. But many traditional shamans will actually tell you that drug use is overhyped and hardly ever called-for amongst real practitioners. If your shamanism training uses drugs, I'd be extremely skeptical of its authenticity... Not to say it's definitely wrong, but it's highly suspect, as so many modern folks use "shamanism" as a flimsy excuse to feel spiritual about their drug use.