LAND BETWEEN THE RIVERS

A sweeping history of the cradle of civilization between the Tigris and the Euphrates, underscoring the region’s unique gifts to humanity.

As a journalist and longtime observer of the region rather than a historian, Bull conveys the excitement of uncovering new intellectual treasures for the reader as he moves from the first Sumerian civilization to the archaeological discoveries at Nineveh in the 1840s. The “land between the rivers” has benefited from but also been ravaged by its singular location between fluctuating empires, Persia to the east and Arabia and Rome to the west. Bull dwells initially on the invention of writing at Uruk around 3300 B.C.E. In the “turbulent, frustrated quest” chronicled in Gilgamesh, an epic probably based on a real Uruk king, builder, and seeker, “we can begin to see the origins of an outlook of free will.” Constant warfare seemed to follow: first with the mighty Assyrian neighbors; then the formidable empire of Cyrus the Great of Persia; followed by Alexander, who spread Hellenistic culture throughout the region. Ultimately the birth of Islam, and the subsequent split between Sunni and Shia, led to the formation of the modern Middle East. But first Bull delineates the culmination of all these cultures' rich cross-pollination in "the glory of medieval Islam" (850 to 1150 C.E.) and the transmission of "the Iranian genius" across the region. He explains how an impecunious Briton named Austen Henry Layard finally managed to get backing from England's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to dig up ruins of ancient Mesopotamian civilization, which “rewrote the history of the world" in the mid-19th century. Bull fast-forwards from there to the crowning of King Faisal I in 1921, then to Iraqi independence, eclipsed by the bloody coup of 1958.

Engaging research and bottomless detail by an avid observer and student of the region.