This book explores ancient Mesopotamian life through a variety of artifacts, each one revealing surprising similarities to modern society and showcasing humanity’s earliest efforts at recording history. This enjoyable and informative book brings people from the past to life.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This was a great introduction to Mesopotamian history, very accessible to a wide audience but also frequently eye-opening for an ancient history nerd like me. I loved the concept and format of the book: a tour of the region’s fascinating history, and indeed the birth of history itself, through the artifacts found insight what may be the world’s oldest museum.

These eight artifacts (and the maybe-museum itself) are themselves explained and then used to elucidate many facets of Mesopotamian life throughout the millennia: war, science, literature, social stratification, gender roles, and more. There are the usual beats of history captured here — kings, conquests, trade routes — but also frequently hilarious fragments of everyday life, such as snappy letters between spouses, admonishments to one’s sister to do her homework, and ancient priests creating fraudulent ancient-er artifacts to prove their legitimacy.

The writing is clear and conversational rather than academic, and the author frequently makes references to her own life and recent history to draw connections between modern and ancient educational practices, worldviews, politics, and so on. I thought the author did a particularly excellent job describing a feeling I often have that I find difficult to explain to other people: the awe I find for ancient places and objects, drawn from a shared sense of human togetherness across the gulf of time and space. She really captured that drive to use history to feel closer to other people.

My only suggestions:
1) The writing was frequently quite repetitive. While it made sense at times because there were a lot of names and periods to refer back to, I felt like some of the repetition could have been cut.
2) While the author did a good job describing them, many of the artifacts, particularly the more artistic ones, would have been more concrete in my mind if pictures had been included.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to people who want to explore a period of time that is too frequently overlooked or mythologized in the modern imagination. Even fantasy readers who delve into nonfiction will likely enjoy this book, as many aspects of the culture it describes are unfamiliar and fascinating.

Own voices history, always going to be my favorite. Also written by a woman, I was in the second I saw it! Al-Rashid not only chooses an interesting way to frame her work, by using objects discovered in a "museum" in Mesopotamia, but her personal connection to Mesopotamian history gives her a interesting connection to the topic that makes her writing and perspective unique to read.

At times, it does feel like the same point is being repeated multiple times per paragraph/chapter. However, I was interested enough and enjoying the work enough for it to not bother me too much.

Would highly recommend for anyone interested in Mesopotamian history, or ancient history in general!

Oldest Archeological Scientific and Literary Treasures on Earth
Moudhy Al-Rashid, Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, August, 2025). Hardcover: $29.99. 336pp, 6X9”. ISBN: 978-1-324-03642-5.
****
“Humanity’s earliest efforts at recording and drawing meaning from history reveal how lives millennia ago were not so different from our own. 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 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… 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 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. Millennia ago, Mesopotamians saw the world’s first cities, the first writing system, early seeds of agriculture, and groundbreaking developments in medicine and astronomy.”
This is a reasonably well-researched book. But most of its claims are vague, and lightly cited with sources. My interest in this book was to confirm the dates of authorship, or creation of mythological manuscripts attributed to Mesopotamia. As part of my preparation for my Fall Mythology course, I learned that the Library of Ashurbanipal, at the location of what is believed to have been the Royal Palace of King Ashurbanipal in 668-627 BC, was “discovered” by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 amidst the conquest of this region by the British Empire. This library is credited with containing 30,000 clay tablets that have been very profitable through their sale to museums. This collection includes the earliest extensive text ever written: the epic of Gilgamesh, as well as other mythological and astrological texts. Most of the references to dating for these texts use vague claims based on what historians have traditionally dated these texts to. But there is some doubt expressed in one section about these tablets, which “should be taken with not just a pinch, but a heaped tablespoon of salt.” The author then claims that the “later periods” have been set with more certainty because “ancient Mesopotamian scholars” recorded “astronomical phenomena in the first millennium” BC, such as the “total solar eclipse that happened on 15 June 763” BC (74). This date might have been precise by modern calculations because it is a relatively modern (19th century) forgery that was made by somebody who calculated when a solar eclipse should have taken place in 763 BC, and then used this date in the forgery to then give authenticators a reason to cite in support of this claim. There are some other interesting elements such as that Gilgamesh absurdly cares about specifically attributing a multi-million-brick wall in this region as built thousands of years ago contemporaneously with this epic’s overseeing by Gilgamesh himself that had been begun by King Uruk (3rd millennium BC). The labor needed to construct this thick wall might have been more intensive than constructing the pyramids that are credited to being built centuries later. Modern archeologists would have cared about crediting a wall to an ancient source because it would have increased the value of their finds from this region, but an ancient king could not have cared to document building a wall as he was also writing the first ever book. Cited articles in support of this dating tend to use abstractions, or references back to past assumptions about the dating, or just cyclical logic, as with Nils P. Heethel’s “Dating EAE. When Was the Astrological Series Enuma Anu Ellil Created?”
This is not an easy book to navigate to find information, but it is logically organized by archeological objects, covering “the clay drum”, “the brick of Amar-Suen”, “statue of King Shulgi”, “school tablets”, “cone of Kudur-Mabuk”, “Boundary Stone”, “Mace Head”, “Ennigaldi-Nanna”. Those who are passionate about archeology will want to read more.
--Pennsylvania Literary Journal: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-summer-2025/

Between Two Rivers was an incredibly fascinating and insightful read. The rarity of finding a book centered on Mesopotamian history initially made me feel unsure of what to expect when I began reading. I needn't have worried, though, as Moudhy Al-Rashid's work provided a comprehensive glimpse into this less-explored period in history. The format--each chapter focused on a different artifact and its origin story--made the book feel more accessible; a primer on various aspects of Mesopotamia that didn't feel too boring or burdensome to read through. I appreciated Al-Rashid's brief references to modern Arabic translations of words as they helped draw connections between the ancient inhabitants of that world and contemporary society. This was a recurring theme throughout the book as Rashid aimed to make the book's readers feel like, despite the thousands of years separating us, there was much we shared with ancient Babylon. A reminder of what makes us all human at our core. All in all, this was a history book worth reading, and I came away with such an interesting understanding of one of history's earliest civilizations.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3. I really enjoy a good non-fiction, especially history and cultures of long ago. Mesopotamia is an area where my knowledge is lacking but I'm very interested and so I was super excited to pick up this book. Between Two Rivers is a well-written and approachable introduction to the region and history- there is a lot of information in this and it's presented in a fashion that is engaging (what can we infer from this object and here's how everything ties together, etc) but unfortunately I just couldn't get into this book. I prefer my non-fiction to be a little dryer and more informative- this was almost too approachable for my tastes. Definitely still a good read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. And thanks for putting up with me while I catch up with all my reviews, ha.

Cuneiform is a reminder that if I can find something in common with someone who lived 2,000 years ago, then I can certainly find something in common with almost anyone alive today. from Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid

Decades ago we took our son back to his birth city of Philadelphia and showed him the sights, including the University of Pennsylvania Museum. We saw remarkable artefacts from ancient Mesopotamia. I have never forgotten the Ram in a Thicket.

I did not at the time know how Pennsylvania came to hold these artefacts, not until reading Between Two Rivers. In 1922, an expedition was sponsored by the British Museum and the University Museum in Pennsylvania, one of the largest digs of its time, lasting twelve seasons. The Ram was one of the thousands of items recovered.

They discovered the ruins of a building that held objects from across thousands of years–a museum! A cuneiform object appeared to be a label for a brick with Sumerian writing, a dead language when the building was standing. We realize that humans have always revered their history and wanted to be remembered by future generations.

Cuneiform preserves the stories of people whose work in many ways made life in ancient Mesopotamia possible. from Between Two Rivers.

I learned that thousands of cuneiform tablets have been discovered, telling the story of humankind’s first agriculture and cities through business records and schoolwork and letters. One tells the story of impoverished children sold into slavery, their mother hoping to buy them back. There are collections of epigrams, including “Fate is a dog, walking always behind a man.”

Kings and rulers rose up, waging brutal war, and leaving behind magnificent tombs filled with treasure and slaughtered human companions. The first laws were engraved on stone as were the images of gods and goddess and the divination that tried to understand them.

Ur was abandoned after the river’s course veered away from it, leaving the city to the sands of time to be discovered thousands of years later. It amazes me how much we know because of marks imprinted on clay tablets. Our own paper and electronic achieves will not survive thousands of years.

A fascinating history, beautifully written.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

I absolutely DEVOURED this during a 14 hour flight. It's both informative and educational but in a tender way. It's almost like the author is rebuilding this society with the human firstly--not the technological advancements or the geopolitics, but the people in mind. There has been a recent uptick in history books regarding Mesopotamia, but the author takes it further by reconstructing the lives of the people who lived between the two rivers, ensuring that they are never forgotten.

This was a really well written book and it is highly enjoyable. Learnt a lot, and it was very well written. Strongly recommend.

This was honestly so cool. Throughout the entirety of this book I was completely absorbed in ancient Mesopotamia and I learned so much. Also, it was like a boring book full of information, there were fun anecdotes and I loved the writing!! Also, I had just been to the British Museum when I read this book and learning more about the objects housed there makes me want to go back!! I do not regret reading this at all, and I loved finding out more about where we came from.

Little one, who dwelled in darkness
now you've come and seen the sun.
Why are you crying, why the worries?
What has made your peace undone?

Though Mesopotamian culture was thriving many thousands of years ago, we aren't so different as one might think. The place, the time and even the materials are different but what we all really are is a people trying to thrive and communicate.

A retelling of history with wonderful research and an easy flow, this book gives much more detail than I could ever hope to pass on in my 6th Grade Social Studies class, but also makes me better prepared and more knowledgeable to pass on the history of history.

Read if:
----> You're a social studies teacher who teaches about Ancient Civilizations, the beginning of Civilization or Mesopotamia specifically.
----> You're a history buff!
----> You're interested in the history Mesopotamia and surrounding areas