Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire

"In Assyria, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of one of the ancient world's most accomplished civilizations, the Assyrian Empire. Tracing its origins to a minor city state in present-day Iraq, Assyria at its height, around 660 BCE, stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, the first empire the world had seen. Breath-taking, belligerent conquest-epitomized in the motto of the seventh-century king Esarhaddon, "Before me, cities; behind me, ruins"- fuelled much of Assyria's growth. But as their power increased, the Assyrians accomplished stunning achievements off the battlefield, too, commissioning the world's first universal library, creating monumental sculpture, and building an elaborate "Royal Road" throughout the empire that allowed the Assyrian metropole, Ashur, to stay in regular contact with its provinces. For three centuries, Assyria reigned preeminent before it suddenly collapsed in 609 BCE, destroyed by the combined armies of the Babylonians and the Medes. Drawing on deep research into Assyrian archaeology, art, and literature, Frahm reveals the enduring influence of Assyria in world history. The empire established a long tradition of war-prone, multi-ethnic conqueror-states, organized into separate provinces and geared towards moving resources on a massive scale from the periphery to the political center. The government of Assyria served, first directly and then indirectly, as a model for future Eurasian empires, from the Babylonian and Persian Empires of antiquity to the Abbasid and Ottoman caliphates of the Islamic period. And its impact extended far beyond politics. For instance, one of the main roots of Israelite monotheism-from which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all emerged-was the traumatic encounter of the Israelites and Judeans with the autocratic rulers of Assyria. While Assyria ultimately fell rapidly within the span of only a decade, the empire left behind a centuries-long legacy that transformed global civilization. An utterly definitive history, this is the breathtaking story of Assyria, told as never before. It will completely reshape our understanding of the ancient world"--… (more)