Mesopotamian leaders, often city-state kings, rose to power in one of three ways (or a combination of each): Being the previous king’s son Show that the gods have chosen him to be king Prove ...

The book impresses with the vast geographic and temporal breadth of its case studies and its findings have significant implications for our understanding of how states and economies are constructed.' ...

The ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon has been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. Iraq had been lobbying since 1983 for the 4,000-year-old site to be added to the United Nations ...