Arthur is beginning to suspect that civilization is the name we give to what little we have salvaged from a loss that no one wants to remember. Triumphs are erected upon the jerry-built scaffolding of brutalities untold, heroic legends spun from the thread of aggressions and atrocities. The irrigation system was Nineveh’s glowing achievement—but how many lives were squandered in its construction? There is always another side, a forgotten side. Water was the city’s greatest asset and defining feature, yet it was also what undermined it in the end. The large amounts of salt deposited by torrent
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