Between Two Rivers

Paperback, 328 pages

English language

Published Feb. 20, 2025 by Hodder Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-5293-9213-5
Goodreads:: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223473876-between-two-rivers

A fresh and fascinating new history of ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history.

Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region that once sat between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for …

A fresh and fascinating new history of ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history.

Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region that once sat between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

210 editions

Gertie MacDowell reviewed Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

A classic I respect but don't necessary like

4 stars

Content warning Plot spoilers herein

Hot on the tails of 'Jane Eyre', I read 'Wuthering Heights' not knowing anything beyond that it concerned two families and their warring relationship.

This did not prepare me for the utterly gripping yet despicable plot. There is not a single likeable character in the entire novel. Even the narrators are not exempt and I found Nell particularly unreliable being an active participant/manipulator of events.

It is such a dark story! Yet it can mean different things to different people and that helps to explain its status as a classic. One can read the setting as a symbol of hell wherein nobody can ever escape from their torment, among many other themes that have been uncovered down through the years.

I did not like a single character however, I found Isabella's development the best of all. She not only escapes Heathcliff, but Brontë also offers us a glimpse of character depth when Hindley shows her his knife and gun and she shares the inner feeling that holding the knife brought to her. No other character gets such an opportunity to share such a hidde admission.

I plowed through this book and its structure supported if not enabled such progress. It started fairly quickly and kept going at a constant pace.

Would I read it again? Perhaps. I certainly share the respect it deserves as a classic of English literature, but I cannot love it like I do other books. It is just too dark for my usual preferences. But if you have not read it, I encourage you to do so.

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