Babylon: Legend, History and the Ancient City

by Michael Seymour

For two thousand years the real, physical metropolis lay buried while another, ghostly city lived on through ideas as varied as the legendary Hanging Gardens, the career of the biblical Daniel, and even the Apocalypse. More recently, the site of Babylon has been the centre of major excavation, yet the spectacular results of this work have done little to displace the many other fascinating ways in which the city has endured and reinvented itself in culture. Saddam Hussein, for one, notoriously exploited the Babylonian myth to associate himself and his regime with its glorious past. Why has Babylon so creatively fired the human imagination, with results both good and ill? Why has it been enthralling to so many, and for so long?In exploring answers, Michael Seymour ranges extensively over space and time and embraces art, archaeology, history and literature.
From Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, via Strabo and Diodorus, to the Book of Revelation, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Voltaire, William Blake and modern interpreters like Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino and Gore Vidal, the author brings to light a carnival of disparate sources dominated by powerful and intoxicating ideas such as the Tower of Babel and the city of sin. Legend, History and the Ancient City weighs idea against reality, fiction against fact, conjuring the fascinating story of this ancient metropolis and its legacy to brilliant life as never before.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2012

Reviews

[Mac · Rating 1 out of 5]

Buyer beware: This is not a history book on the city of Babylon.

It is instead a converted doctoral thesis on interpretation of what Europeans who didn't know what Babylon was, thought it was...

[Dylan Rudling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing way of showcasing the story of Babylon in non-fiction. Rather than just trodding through the chronology of the great city, as many history books are prone to, this book delved into the story of Babylon through its legend and its rediscovery. Analysing the classical and medieval texts on Babylon was fascinating, as was the romantic revival of Babylon and the Near East in art and literature (thanks Byron), however my favourite section of the book was the chapter on the early excavations of the 19th and 20th centuries. As the British archaeologists dug deeper into sites like Nineveh and Khorsabad, and the efforts of Hincks and Rawlinson uncovered the mysteries of cuneiform, Babylon was excavated by the Germans at the height of their imperial power. The story of the birth of Assyriology is fascinating.

[Inge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this a ton! Big inspiration for my thesis - I want to write this about Carthage ;)

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a mixed bag. Part history of Babylon and part history of people's interpretations and understandings of Babylon, with a side of art history thrown in as well, this book is a brief overview of everything related to Babylon. I need to be careful to avoid criticizing the parts I don't prefer just because I don't find those topics interesting, but in being as objective as I think I can be, it seems that Mr. Seymour is trying to do too much in this book.

I personally enjoyed the sections on the history of Babylon and the history of archaeology of Babylon, and I disliked the art and literature reviews. I think Mr. Seymour treated those sections well enough, but they aren't personally very interesting for me.

Still, just because I don't prefer a topic is no reason to take stars away from a book. What does detract from this book is the let's-cram-everything-about-Babylon-into-one-book approach and some dry prose. These two things make the book okay but not great.

I learned a number of things about Babylon and corrected some misconceptions I had, so reading this book was not a waste of time, but there were several sections that I read quickly to get past to something better.

[Celz Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand Bible prophecy, you should know the beginnings and the end of Babylon. Who or what is Babylon.