A review by wordsfromvictoria
Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek

3.0

A rather idiosyncratic text that falls squarely into the popular history camp. Kriwaczek is keen to draw (anachronistic) parallels between us and ancient Mesopotamians in an attempt to bring them to life. at times, it feels that the comparisons are a little stretched. Much of what we know about these civilizations is from their material culture; which can only tell us so much. (The spade never lies but only because it cannot speak). The vast majority of cuneiform tablets have not even been translated and there have been some serious disputes over the correct translations of ones that have been. For example, whether a court verdict led to a woman being executed or completely exonerated. That is some ambiguity. Also, as cuneiform fell out of fashion, materials less durable than clay tablets were used for writing, and these have decayed out of existence, leaving large gaps in the later historical record. There is a lot of guesswork and supposition on the part of the author, which is never satisfactorily backed up by evidence or research to support his conclusions.

Having said that, one particularly interesting nugget of information that this book revealed was that ancient Mesopotamia had a very sophisticated debt system and what appears to be proto commodities futures. There would also be on occasion debt crises. Plus ca change!

Not a terrible book, but hardly a serious historical work either.