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Book Review
Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth
I was intrigued by the title of Nancy Marie Brown’s latest book Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Help Save the Earth. In many ways, I am the ideal audience for this book: a history and anthropology enthusiast with limited...
Book Review
Everyday Cosmopolitanisms: Living the Silk Road in Medieval Armenia
When I first saw the title of this book, I was excited to read it. Many studies on the Silk Road focus on its eastern end in China or its southern sections in the Middle East, but few scholars have looked at the relationship between Central...
Book Review
Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West
El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, is used as an allusion by H. W. Brands in his recent book to describe how 19th-century Americans viewed the land west of the Mississippi River. One could describe the history of the United States with...
Book Review
The Penelopiad (Canongate Myths)
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood is a retelling of the life of Penelope, and the fate of the 12 maids from the Odyssey. In this contemporary tale, Atwood delves into the question of why were the twelve maids hanged and what led up to their...
Book Review
Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia
Few English-language histories of the country and land of Georgia have been written. Donald Rayfield's Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia attempts to fill this gap. Rayfield is a scholar of Russian and Georgian literature, and while he...
Book Review
Ancient Mesopotamian Government and Geography (Spotlight on the Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations)
In Ancient Mesopotamian Government and Geography, Laura la Bella attempts to offer a broad overview of ancient Mesopotamian government. Though, it is more an overview of Mesopotamian culture and practices that is framed by a distinction between...
Book Review
Rise of the Early Roman Republic: Reflections on Becoming Roman
Thomas L. Dynneson received his PhD in Education and Anthropology in 1972 from the University of Colorado. From his time as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, Dynneson primarily researched civism. As he describes it, civism “is a...
Book Review
Uncovering the Culture of Ancient Greece
Uncovering the Culture of Ancient Greece by Alix Wood is a part of the Archaeology and Ancient Cultures series. It is designed for younger, elementary school-aged children aiming to pique their interest in and educate them about ancient cultures...
Book Review
What Are They Saying About Ancient Israelite Religion?
For keen readers of the Bible, it's no secret that ancient Israelites worshipped many gods other than Yahweh. After all, biblical writers tell us so in their lamenting, denouncing way. Judges tells us that the people worshipped Baals and...
Book Review
The Rise of the Seleukid Empire (323-223 BC): Seleukos I to Seleukos III
The day Alexander the Great died, his empire began to fall apart. With no clear succession plan and only an infant son's tenuous claim to Alexander's legacy, his generals were no longer united by common devotion to their leader. And so, their...
