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Between the Rivers: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia
18 hours
All cultures lie in the shadow of ancient Mesopotamia-the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that is now mostly encompassed by the borders of modern Iraq. In this fascinating series of 36 lectures, an award-winning teacher leads you on a vivid journey through Mesopotamian history-from Neolithic times to the age of Alexander the Great-and into the lives of mighty emperors, struggling farmers, ambitious merchants, and palace servants to reveal why this ancient culture occupies such a foundational position in our history.
The lectures look back to the time when the first cities arose in Mesopotamia and kings created complex bureaucracies to rule their expanding territories, thus fostering the invention of writing and other technologies. You peer into the lives and fortunes of Mesopotamia's people and learn about the birth of the urban lifestyle.
Professor Castor creates a detailed image not only of larger Mesopotamian society but of life on the level of the individual Mesopotamian as well. Among the many fascinating insights into daily Mesopotamian life you examine are how they ate, worked, learned, worshiped, married, and reared children; used scientific ideas to help them order and understand the natural world; engaged with their powerful neighbors in Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey); waged war and experienced peace; and endured the collapse of their cities.
All cultures lie in the shadow of ancient Mesopotamia-the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that is now mostly encompassed by the borders of modern Iraq. In this fascinating series of 36 lectures, an award-winning teacher leads you on a vivid journey through Mesopotamian history-from Neolithic times to the age of Alexander the Great-and into the lives of mighty emperors, struggling farmers, ambitious merchants, and palace servants to reveal why this ancient culture occupies such a foundational position in our history.
The lectures look back to the time when the first cities arose in Mesopotamia and kings created complex bureaucracies to rule their expanding territories, thus fostering the invention of writing and other technologies. You peer into the lives and fortunes of Mesopotamia's people and learn about the birth of the urban lifestyle.
Professor Castor creates a detailed image not only of larger Mesopotamian society but of life on the level of the individual Mesopotamian as well. Among the many fascinating insights into daily Mesopotamian life you examine are how they ate, worked, learned, worshiped, married, and reared children; used scientific ideas to help them order and understand the natural world; engaged with their powerful neighbors in Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey); waged war and experienced peace; and endured the collapse of their cities.
374 pages, Audible Audio
First published July 8, 2013
15 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
August 11, 2025
Lately I have been fascinated by ancient history and when I saw this course I couldn’t pass it up. It is a great overall outline and I learned some interesting facts. Alexis Q. Castor did a wonderful job at explaining how archaeological evidence is found and how it can be interpreted as fact, fiction or unknown.
The course was made in 2006 so I am excited to see what we have learned about Mesopotamia since.
18 hours but sped up to 1.4 was doable. A lot of info!
The course was made in 2006 so I am excited to see what we have learned about Mesopotamia since.
18 hours but sped up to 1.4 was doable. A lot of info!
June 24, 2024
The research and detail presented in this "Great Courses" title were excellent. The accompanying notes and maps are excellent. Unfortunately, Alexis Castor presents this material with all the flair and panache of a malfunctioning robot. not only is she completely monotone, but she takes random pauses at the most awkward moments. I found myself constantly looking down to see if my headphones had come out or if I was receiving a text or call. Nope, she just took another 3-second pause in the middle of a sentence... again. Normally, I listen to audible readings at 1.1 or 1.15 speed. This is because I'm from NY and we just tend to speak a little faster than the rest of the world (except India) I moved her up to about 1.4. At this speed, she sounded just a tad fast for my NY ears, but the weird pauses every third sentence weren't quite as grating. As much as I wanted to enjoy this more, and as much as I did learn from it... I would still strongly recommend against it except for the most diehard ancient history fans.
May 23, 2020
This is an informative course on ancient Mesopotamia with excellent class notes and even better maps—15 of them—well worth deliberate examination. Halfway through, I found the notes my priority learning source. To my ear, lectures seemed genteel, lacking the enthusiasm, zeal, and excitement that someone like Steven L. Goldman provides in his philosophy of science series, also offered by The Great Courses. However, many will prefer the former style as it’s uniform with ample time to catch highlights.
Aside from that minor matter, this professor lays out a well-crafted story that starts ca. 6000 B.C. with the often forgotten yet so critical baseline of Levantine geography, environment, and climate. Like an 1150 mile long Tigris and 1700 mile Euphrates, one fast and deep, not conducive to irrigation, the other slow with low banks inviting forced agriculture. Given much of the wild game was hunted to extinction, a turn to animal husbandry is almost simultaneous. Where the two rivers come closest, allowing access to their different characteristics (farming & transport), this becomes the birthplace of cities (~10k-100k people), hence civilization. And that’s not always a good thing.
Art and crafts reach high levels of development until (my speculation) the dominance of commerce squeeze it out for practical, less creative forms of mass production. Specialized labor and the rise of class structures emerge. Writing, the wheel, beer, the sexagesimal number system on everyone’s wristwatch and clock, and temples were invented for each city’s god. Like 30,000 B.C. cave bear skulls discussed by Joseph Campbell, the gods get fed also. Religion is not based on faith or personal connection, but precise, laborious, ritual, as though going through the motions has magic power. As gods appear fond of doing, theirs sent plagues too. Parallels with the deity of the Hebrew Bible are striking. The royal child abandoned in a river basket or its equivalent, found by commoners, then ascending to greatness is a familiar story begun here with Sargon, later Moses, then Cyrus. Developed resources look evermore inviting of conflict, and the cities start to build walls where they once had none (e.g., the great walls Gilgamesh built—if he existed, though it appears he did). And if we Americans think we’re stuck in forever mismanaged wars, the Mesopotamians had one between two cities over farmland for 150 years. Like natural selection of novel mutations, war becomes an unnatural selective pressure on civilization, sorting those best suited for it. To manage the ever-growing numbers of humans and their problems, these ancients became remarkably savage, where ISIS wouldn’t be unusual. Yet, Mesopotamia also provided the first written law codes. The confusion of peoples in this region is a perennial theme. Their tribal nature is easily understandable in 2020 America. A good series of 36 lectures.
Aside from that minor matter, this professor lays out a well-crafted story that starts ca. 6000 B.C. with the often forgotten yet so critical baseline of Levantine geography, environment, and climate. Like an 1150 mile long Tigris and 1700 mile Euphrates, one fast and deep, not conducive to irrigation, the other slow with low banks inviting forced agriculture. Given much of the wild game was hunted to extinction, a turn to animal husbandry is almost simultaneous. Where the two rivers come closest, allowing access to their different characteristics (farming & transport), this becomes the birthplace of cities (~10k-100k people), hence civilization. And that’s not always a good thing.
Art and crafts reach high levels of development until (my speculation) the dominance of commerce squeeze it out for practical, less creative forms of mass production. Specialized labor and the rise of class structures emerge. Writing, the wheel, beer, the sexagesimal number system on everyone’s wristwatch and clock, and temples were invented for each city’s god. Like 30,000 B.C. cave bear skulls discussed by Joseph Campbell, the gods get fed also. Religion is not based on faith or personal connection, but precise, laborious, ritual, as though going through the motions has magic power. As gods appear fond of doing, theirs sent plagues too. Parallels with the deity of the Hebrew Bible are striking. The royal child abandoned in a river basket or its equivalent, found by commoners, then ascending to greatness is a familiar story begun here with Sargon, later Moses, then Cyrus. Developed resources look evermore inviting of conflict, and the cities start to build walls where they once had none (e.g., the great walls Gilgamesh built—if he existed, though it appears he did). And if we Americans think we’re stuck in forever mismanaged wars, the Mesopotamians had one between two cities over farmland for 150 years. Like natural selection of novel mutations, war becomes an unnatural selective pressure on civilization, sorting those best suited for it. To manage the ever-growing numbers of humans and their problems, these ancients became remarkably savage, where ISIS wouldn’t be unusual. Yet, Mesopotamia also provided the first written law codes. The confusion of peoples in this region is a perennial theme. Their tribal nature is easily understandable in 2020 America. A good series of 36 lectures.
February 3, 2026
This 36 lecture course on the land of Mesopotamia was so fun and informative! I am going to hopefully go through it again in the future. It seems to be Professor Alexis Castor’s only production, unfortunately. I highly recommend this for a quick, but not shallow, overview of a 5000 year period of the land of the beginning of so much of human civilization. Do yourself a favor, and go through this course series.
December 13, 2024
Informative, but long-winded and kinda boring. Castor was old school in her pedagogy, and not in a good way. This series of lectures would have probably been stronger, as she would have been forced to think about what could be cut and what was necessary. I vote for ditching the lectures on deep dives in temple iconography. Still, this was a good general introduction to the different civilizations ruling ancient Mesopotamia.
April 22, 2016
This is a thorough survey of Mesopotamian history that was thoroughly fun to listen to. As other reviewers have pointed out, Ms. Castor is a bit drier than some of the professors in the Great Courses series. However, the material she brings together is engaging and interesting. A lot of the information was review for me, but the lectures also filled in some significant gaps in my knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia. Especially exciting was the way Castor emphasized how we know what we know, and, in addition to written historical records, focused on archaeology, art, literature, and cultural anthropology to build a complete picture of Mesopotamian life. There are certain lectures I will probably listen to again in the future for review.
September 11, 2012
Dr. Castor is wonderfully engaging. I loved this course--both the audio and the coursebook. I've listened to it in my car several times, and I refer to the coursebook often. Highly recommended if you're interested in ANY aspect of ancient Mesopotamia, be it political history, culture, whatever.
January 18, 2023
A good source for the subject matter. Detailed at times, insightful and thought-provoking even for a person who studied this at school!
The idea that traditional history telling can be scrutinized is new to me and makes perfect sense in light of all the modern-day lies marketed as facts. Yes, the Assyrians wrote their own version of history, and so did all the winners. And yes, the story of civilization is not only a tale of who won the battles and who sat on the throne, but also that of the ordinary man/woman, the farmers, scribes, textile weavers and the traders.
I was born and raised in that land, and the book made me feel proud. I'd love to extend an invitation to all of you to listen to the lectures, and when things are better, maybe I can join you in a visit to Babylon, Nimrud or Ur.
The idea that traditional history telling can be scrutinized is new to me and makes perfect sense in light of all the modern-day lies marketed as facts. Yes, the Assyrians wrote their own version of history, and so did all the winners. And yes, the story of civilization is not only a tale of who won the battles and who sat on the throne, but also that of the ordinary man/woman, the farmers, scribes, textile weavers and the traders.
I was born and raised in that land, and the book made me feel proud. I'd love to extend an invitation to all of you to listen to the lectures, and when things are better, maybe I can join you in a visit to Babylon, Nimrud or Ur.
April 22, 2020
A talented lecturer and storyteller can bring history to life; unfortunately, what Professor Castor offers us is akin to euthanasia. The lectures are dry and boring, like listen to a textbook being read by a pleasant-sounding robot.
December 19, 2018
Let's start by getting the technical details out of the way. "Between the Rivers" is a course from Teaching Company covering the history of the area called cradle of civilizations, ancient Mesopotamia. The course is led by professor Alexis Q. Castor and consists of 36 30 minutes long lectures. The material covers a lot of material - after a short introduction about historiography and history of archeology in the area, the professor continues with chronological history of Mesopotamia sprinkled with more focused lectures about such vast topics as religious beliefs, trade, role of kings and queens, international relations, warfare... Our good professor does a good job in keeping topics varied and interesting throughout the course and despite a theoretical (more about that below) lenght of 18 hours, time flies while listening to her lectures.
So why only three stars then? First and foremost because this course is, despite of its varied topics, pretty introductory in nature. People previously familiar with the topic will most certainly enjoy the lectures, but I'm not sure they will expand their knowledge. My second issue is of more personal nature and I will be the first to admit that I am quite unfair by even making an issue out of it. But the fact remains that lecturer's has a very unusual, or more precisely, slow narrative technique with extended pauses between most of the sentences and (oddly enough) before prepositions and conjunctions. As I already said, it's extremly unfair of me pointing it out, but I found it very distracting and resolved it only by increasing the speed of playback by 20 percent.
I suspect that people interested and unfamiliar with the topic will get out much more out of 'Between the Rivers' courses that I did. But it was an enjoyable 15 hours nonetheless and in the final analyisis, what else could one wish for? :-)
So why only three stars then? First and foremost because this course is, despite of its varied topics, pretty introductory in nature. People previously familiar with the topic will most certainly enjoy the lectures, but I'm not sure they will expand their knowledge. My second issue is of more personal nature and I will be the first to admit that I am quite unfair by even making an issue out of it. But the fact remains that lecturer's has a very unusual, or more precisely, slow narrative technique with extended pauses between most of the sentences and (oddly enough) before prepositions and conjunctions. As I already said, it's extremly unfair of me pointing it out, but I found it very distracting and resolved it only by increasing the speed of playback by 20 percent.
I suspect that people interested and unfamiliar with the topic will get out much more out of 'Between the Rivers' courses that I did. But it was an enjoyable 15 hours nonetheless and in the final analyisis, what else could one wish for? :-)
July 22, 2025
As someone who teaches world history and regularly immerses myself in the early civilizations of the Near East, I found Between the Rivers to be a welcome and accessible survey of ancient Mesopotamian history. Alexis Q. Castor approaches the region with clarity, academic rigor, and a refreshing sense of narrative cohesion that many introductory overviews struggle to maintain. This course does not simply jump from city to city or dynasty to dynasty. Instead, it strives to show how cultural, political, and religious systems evolved and built upon one another across millennia.
The title "Between the Rivers" refers, of course, to Mesopotamia, or the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, a region often called the cradle of civilization. While many surveys of ancient Mesopotamia emphasize this point, Castor resists romanticizing the narrative. She explores the realities of early urban development, the intricacies of temple economies, the emergence of writing systems like cuneiform, and the violent but transformative nature of empire-building from the Akkadians to the Neo-Assyrians.
One of the course’s biggest strengths is its structure. The lectures proceed chronologically but with thematic overlap, allowing the viewer to understand how aspects like kingship, religion, trade, and warfare persisted and changed across eras. Castor also gives attention to some often-overlooked cities and figures, including Mari, Nuzi, and Gudea of Lagash. These inclusions make the series more than just another retelling of Hammurabi and Gilgamesh, though both do appear and are treated thoughtfully.
As an academic myself, I especially appreciated the attention paid to the archaeological record and the careful way Castor highlights both what we do know and where the evidence is fragmentary. There is an honesty in this course that reflects real scholarly caution without dampening curiosity. She also does a fine job integrating modern historiographical perspectives, such as recent reinterpretations of imperial administration or gender roles, while maintaining accessibility for a general audience.
If there is a drawback, it is more a function of the medium than the instructor. Like many Great Courses, Between the Rivers must cover a vast timeline in a limited amount of time. Some fascinating developments, especially in the Sumerian and Neo-Babylonian periods, do not receive as much attention as they could. I also would have welcomed more engagement with the region’s literary and mythological texts. Gilgamesh is discussed, but I'm confident much more could have been presented, especially to demonstrate the cumulative nature of belief in Mesopotamia. Still, this feels more like a limitation of scope than a flaw in Castor’s teaching.
Overall, I would highly recommend this course to anyone looking to build a foundation in the ancient history of Mesopotamia. Whether you are a student, a teacher seeking supplemental material, or simply a history enthusiast, there is a lot to gain here. Castor’s style is clear, thoughtful, and quietly authoritative. She is not flashy, but she is consistently informative. In a world where the ancient Near East is often neglected in popular discourse, a course like this performs an important service by showing just how much our modern world owes to this ancient land between the rivers.
For more check out my video:
https://youtu.be/Z3xFzPiIR6w
For more reviews check out my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/@SpencerReadsE...
The title "Between the Rivers" refers, of course, to Mesopotamia, or the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, a region often called the cradle of civilization. While many surveys of ancient Mesopotamia emphasize this point, Castor resists romanticizing the narrative. She explores the realities of early urban development, the intricacies of temple economies, the emergence of writing systems like cuneiform, and the violent but transformative nature of empire-building from the Akkadians to the Neo-Assyrians.
One of the course’s biggest strengths is its structure. The lectures proceed chronologically but with thematic overlap, allowing the viewer to understand how aspects like kingship, religion, trade, and warfare persisted and changed across eras. Castor also gives attention to some often-overlooked cities and figures, including Mari, Nuzi, and Gudea of Lagash. These inclusions make the series more than just another retelling of Hammurabi and Gilgamesh, though both do appear and are treated thoughtfully.
As an academic myself, I especially appreciated the attention paid to the archaeological record and the careful way Castor highlights both what we do know and where the evidence is fragmentary. There is an honesty in this course that reflects real scholarly caution without dampening curiosity. She also does a fine job integrating modern historiographical perspectives, such as recent reinterpretations of imperial administration or gender roles, while maintaining accessibility for a general audience.
If there is a drawback, it is more a function of the medium than the instructor. Like many Great Courses, Between the Rivers must cover a vast timeline in a limited amount of time. Some fascinating developments, especially in the Sumerian and Neo-Babylonian periods, do not receive as much attention as they could. I also would have welcomed more engagement with the region’s literary and mythological texts. Gilgamesh is discussed, but I'm confident much more could have been presented, especially to demonstrate the cumulative nature of belief in Mesopotamia. Still, this feels more like a limitation of scope than a flaw in Castor’s teaching.
Overall, I would highly recommend this course to anyone looking to build a foundation in the ancient history of Mesopotamia. Whether you are a student, a teacher seeking supplemental material, or simply a history enthusiast, there is a lot to gain here. Castor’s style is clear, thoughtful, and quietly authoritative. She is not flashy, but she is consistently informative. In a world where the ancient Near East is often neglected in popular discourse, a course like this performs an important service by showing just how much our modern world owes to this ancient land between the rivers.
For more check out my video:
https://youtu.be/Z3xFzPiIR6w
For more reviews check out my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/@SpencerReadsE...
August 4, 2022
Following the lectures presented in Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations, I decided to do some researching on Ancient Mesopotamia. This course did a phenomenal job of covering the history of Mesopotamia, the history, food, religions, languages, and cultures. This was absolutely fascinating. I will follow these lectures with Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations. Then I will begin reading on Ancient Egypt.
July 11, 2024
solid stuff. castor is a pro, albeit very dry and boring (her voice is fine at 2x speed), and the material covered is extensive. partly this is due to the fact that only specific clusters of sources survive from specific places and time. the lectures castor puts together reflects the state of knowledge in these areas (e.g., life in an early sumerian city, the life of an assyrian merchant, the epic of gilgamesh as pieced together from various surviving tablets, hammurabi's life and times, food and drink in mesopotamia, greek perspectives on the achmaenids and parthians, etc.). it's great commute fodder, but be warned that she (like kenneth harl and the other more "serious" profs retained by the teaching company isn't one of those rufus fears-style "orotund orators" who speaks a lot and says little (he's fun too, but one can only eat so much of that academic candy before developing a sour stomach).
February 27, 2020
Interesting but for such a long lecture series not deep enough and at the same time too deep. Ill explain, It covers a large period and a fairly large area so it never goes deep enough into the dynasties and how they interactive but at the same time it went way too deep into not only how archaeologists determine what happened but also the methods used to discover them, that with the tendency to give the 'every man" perspective hurt this lecture series. Finally and I'm hesitant to mention it but the lecturer has an odd way of speaking, she pauses for long periods of time and even half way through sentences which makes listening to her lectures uncomfortable at times or worst boring.
I learned a lot of things so I still give it 3 stars but this is not one of the better Great Courses series.
I learned a lot of things so I still give it 3 stars but this is not one of the better Great Courses series.
December 6, 2020
I had a grand time listening to this one, though a confusing sentence about William Flinders Petrie vs. Howard Carter almost threw me off the track at the beginning. The lecturer is crisp and efficient but occasionally very funny (when speaking of the statue of King Gudea, who dressed himself as a humble priest with great biceps: "He wants us to know he's pious, but still sexy.") There's necessarily a bit of skimming, and she focuses on a few notable kings from the Sumerian and Akkadian king lists. I enjoyed the lectures on material history, but would have liked more, as well as more discussion of the linguistic situation at various points in history.
December 12, 2024
This was an interesting listen but I imagine the scholarship has developed a lot since this was published.
I also can't get over the professor mistakenly saying that Flinders Petrie discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun instead of Howard Carter. I can't believe that none of the editors noticed and corrected this! It makes me a little worried about what else the author could've been mistaken about...
I also can't get over the professor mistakenly saying that Flinders Petrie discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun instead of Howard Carter. I can't believe that none of the editors noticed and corrected this! It makes me a little worried about what else the author could've been mistaken about...
June 28, 2022
these lectures were super dry and tedious, but they really were just what i needed. the material was dense and the professor was pretty monotone, but i would mostly listen to this while driving, so it was perfect for me to not get distracted from the road. it would also help me sleep on some nights. definitely not something to listen to on its own, but i enjoyed it a lot!
October 6, 2023
This was such a thorough history of Ancient Mesopotamia. I learned so much about the ancient civilizations found between the rivers, and I loved the way that Alexis Castor told their stories. She has such a way of narration, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a history teacher, this history has definitely enriched my knowledge, and I will be able to better teach my kids.
November 16, 2017
Clear, easy to understand- though not completely linear-and well presented. There were a few production issues where the sound would glitch mid-word but, while noticeable, it never obscured meaning.
August 20, 2020
I really enjoyed this, it just took me so long to finish. I have always been intrigued by this area and time in history so I loved learning more about it. It just didn't keep me engaged for long spells of time. The author/narrator was very pleasant to listen too so I would recommend this to others.
January 20, 2022
Really cool learning about the first cities on earth, how and why they may have been built, what evolved from them, and what their cultures were like. There was also a lot of discussion of where the holes in our knowledge are and what that means for our understanding. Very cool.
September 22, 2024
Pretty informative. It meandered somewhat, and jumped around timelines making some things hard to track with. It was quite the data dump, so if you're not into the topic, you'd probably find it boring. Professor Castor knew the content well, and she's a good communicator, if a little dry.
February 11, 2019
内容还算丰富，毕竟也是五千年历史，但是主讲这位语速有点慢且不自然
April 28, 2019
Mjög fróðlegir fyrirlestrar en eintóna og þurrir áheyrnar.
February 12, 2020
Good companion to the video.
January 4, 2021
Has lots of interesting tidbits but the performance and pace is slow. For the scholar type, you’d like it but you’ll have to try hard to stay interested at times.
December 7, 2021
Though the topic is interesting, I didn't find the presentation particularly interesting or cohesive. It did not make me more interested in the topic. Would not recommend overall.
May 16, 2022
Fantastic.
June 22, 2024
From gilgamesh to assyrian to achaemenid Persians
October 4, 2024
Exceptional lecturer, fascinating history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews