Four Thousand Years Ago

The author of the recent popular Testimony of the Spade now gives us "a world panorama of life in the Second Millennium, B.C." or roughly, the years 2000 to 1000 B.C. Starting with what Egyptian farm life and city-states were like in those early times, he takes us in a pleasant, informal fashion through Mesopotamia, the primitive Scandinavian farms and woods, over to Asia, up to the Arctic, and so on. Converting libraries full of archeology into layman's terms, recreating life as it supposedly was, even using fictional techniques from time to time, he actually breathes life into the dust of the past. Stonehenge, King Hammurabi, the Hittites, the Pharaohs, the Sack of Troy, the flight of Moses fictionally seen through an Egyptian soldier's eyes - these are some of the highlights. The book ends with the collapse of the old empires and civilizations, with hints of the coming Persian, Greek, and Roman worlds. A fascinating, well-crafted book, adding much to the popularization of history and research. (Kirkus Reviews)