Description

A vibrant, colorful, and authoritative exploration of the world's first and most illustrious metropolis.

'Babylon' is a name that has a double life: it denotes the great ancient Mesopotamian city with a long and complex history, and it is also a fictive allusion with a wide variety of connotations, from the Hebrew bible's Tower of Babel, through the New Testament's 'Whore of Babylon' to the iconic song 'The Rivers of Babylon’ in the 1970s.

The first royal dynasty of Babylon was founded by an Amorite interloper named Sumu-la-El a thousand years after the fall of the great Sumerian city states of Ur and Uruk, creating a new superpower in the Near East. Clinging close to the mighty River Euphrates, the city quickly grew in size and, thanks to its military prowess, soon expanded its territories, sweeping down to the Persian Gulf and advancing north into Syria.

The kingdom of Babylonia came in to being and, governed from mighty Babylon, setting the agenda for what civilization meant. This fascinating book explores Babylon's reputation as a city with a dual legacy by exploring its rich ancient past and its astonishing mythic legacy.

About the author(s)

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones holds the chair in ancient history at Cardiff University. The author of Persians and The Cleopatras, among other books, he has published widely on ancient history and lives in Taff’s Well, Wales.

Reviews

"Llewellyn-Jones guides the reader through labyrinthine streets, frenzied shopping for gewgaws, taverns that functioned as love hotels, Rabelaisian eating and drinking, raucous popular songs. Rich with meticulous scholarship, illuminated by sharp wit, and full of subtle judgment, Babylon is quite simply enthralling.”

“Llewellyn-Jones (ancient history, Cardiff Univ.; The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt) skillfully presents the dramatic rises and falls of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon in this mesmerizing book. For both scholarly and popular audiences, this book belongs in all libraries supporting the study of ancient history.”

Library Journal

"Llewellyn-Jones delves deeply into Babylonian culture, limning the ways war was integral to the society as a sacred charge of the gods and exploring the sources and results of the Babylonian fixation on such pleasures as sex and food. An excellent and accessible tome that expertly explores the rich history of the famed ancient city. Teens studying ancient history will find this useful and accessible."

"Llewellyn-Jones writes well. He delivers a steady stream of rulers, cutthroat royal infighting, and war. An authoritative examination of “the Mother of All Cities.”"

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