Asimov Isaac.The Near East: 10,000 years of history

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968. — 296 p. — ISBN13 9780395065624. — ISBN10 0395065623.In this fascinating book, the brilliant Isaac Asimov tells the story of the land between two rivers — the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates — where Western civilization began and civilization goes on today in the troubled Near East. The history is a rich and varied one. It was here that the first alphabet was born, that laws were first made public (so the judged could judge the judge), and given a permanence (the stone pillar with its message exists to this day). It was here that great civilizations came and went: the Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians. Peoples borrowed and built upon and influenced, but all had (and have) in common the rivers and the land.
Isaac Asimov who enjoys an unparalleled reputation as a writer of science, both fiction and nonfiction, has received a warm, critical welcome as a writer of history. For, to his recounting of the affairs of men and politics, he brings his same gift for lively, lucid prose and his own infectious enthusiasm.
Dr. Asimov began his histories with «The Greeks: a great adventure» and followed with «The Roman republic», «The Roman Empire» and the «Egyptians». Now with «The near east: 10,000 years of history», he rounds out his unique coverage of the great Mediterranean civilizations.The Sumerians
The first farmers
The life-giving rivers
The great inventions
The greatest invention
The flood
Warfare
The Akkadians
The first empire
The conquering nomads
The city of Abraham
The Amorites
Enter Babylon
The changing of the gods
The pillar of the law
The coming of the horse
The Assyrians
The great hunter
Iron
The Assyrian Hitler
The horse grows larger
The queen that wasn’t
The policy of exile
The last dynasty
Frustrations and fury
At the peak
The royal librarian
The Chaldeans
The end of Nineveh
The division of the sports
Babylon in its glory
The Jews in exile pais
The royal antiquarian
The Persians
The gentle conqueror
The war of light and dark
The organizer
The end of Marduk
The battle of the brothers
The Macedonians
Union against Persia
David beats Goliath
Exit Babylon
The pull of the west
The Parthians
Exit the Seleucids
Enter Rome
The armored horsemen
Stand-off
Rome at the gulf
The Sassanids
Re-enter the Persians
The pull of the past
Roman recovery
The Christian enemy
A century of confusion
The heretics
The moment of
Enlightenment
The moment of triumph
The Arabs
History repeats itself
The factions of Islam
Baghdad
The puppet Caliphs
The Turks
The heirs take over
End and beginning of a dual
The assassins
Terror from central Asia
The Ottomans
The Europeans
The return of the Westerners
The Russians
The Germans
Israel
Table of dates
Index