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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
Good brief overview of early empires from many authors. Disappointed in the Indian empires section since this is a Weak Spot For Me but ah well the Bronze Age stuff was great Jack you’d like this
medium-paced
informative
A succinct and engaging introduction to 10 ancient empires, some better known than others. I found the introductions to the (South) East Asian empires (ancient India and China, roughly) to be lacking relative to the descriptions of the western empires, but still interesting nonetheless.
informative
My enjoyment (and ability to retain the information) varied from chapter to chapter. None of them are meant to go in-depth on their subject, just presenting an overview that an interested reader can use as a jumping-off point to dive further into the topic. With that in mind, I judged each section more on the author's ability to make me want to do that than anything else. I do believe that when you're an academic writing for a non-academic audience, a key part of the job is presenting the material in an interesting way, rather than just, well, presenting it. I'd say about half of the authors here succeeded in that, and half wrote sections about as dry as a Wikipedia page.
That said, one of the reasons I picked up this book was to feel a little more grounded in my knowledge of the major players and moments in the ancient world—things like knowing who were contemporaries with each other, being able to draw a rough timeline of these empires and events, and understanding the evolution of empire and how they built on the ideas and regimes that came before them—and I do feel like I have a good sense of that now.
That said, one of the reasons I picked up this book was to feel a little more grounded in my knowledge of the major players and moments in the ancient world—things like knowing who were contemporaries with each other, being able to draw a rough timeline of these empires and events, and understanding the evolution of empire and how they built on the ideas and regimes that came before them—and I do feel like I have a good sense of that now.
A very good introductory book although the chapters do vary in accessibility - as a complete beginner to the topic I did find some hard to follow. However, the chapters on the Assyrians and Rome were particularly good.
"When we focus on this ideological aspect of empires, their ability to recreate themselves endlessly, the differences between ancient and modern empires strip away."
informative
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced