-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The Biography of a Metropolis
by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
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.
"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.'"—Kirkus Reviews
"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." —Booklist
"Llewellyn-Jones 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
"Compelling and authoritative, this history of Babylon combines narrative flair with the latest scholarship to deliver an exhilarating portrait of one of the world's greatest cities." ―Simon Sebag Montefiore, New York Times bestselling author of Jerusalem: The Biography
"An important reassessment of Babylonian civilization, literature and science by one of our greatest scholars of the ancient world. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones achieves a remarkable feat of urban resurrection as he reanimates Babylon and shows us how far Mesopotamia's greatest metropolis rose above its caricature as the City of Sin, the home of the Great Whore, the Antichrist and the Tower of Babel." ―William Dalrymple, bestselling author of The Golden Road
This information about Babylon was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
If you liked Babylon, try these:
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
