Sumer and the Sumerians

I finished university and I’m still interested to read it. Worth the money.

Great book, you must read it absolutely

A good read, covers lots of ground in an informative manner. Lots of line drawings which help visualise plans or statues for example.If the book has a negative, for me it's around the fact that it's written for students (which I wasn't aware of when I ordered it) which means that there's quite a bit of fence sitting - I'd much rather an author just came out and said where they stand on an issue, I'm a big boy now, I can take it!

The academic content is undeniably proficient, but the book overall is really boring because the perspective is limited. I understand that without archaeological data there's no understanding at all, but as a non-specialist reader I'd have enjoyed a much broader discourse.After reading this book, I can enumerate a number of excavations and what has been found but if one asks me what I have actually understood of Sumerians, I'd say very little.Unless you are an archaeologist, I suggest that you search for other sources as introductions to Sumerian culture.

Used for university course reading and reference.

I have found this book incredibly frustrating to read. As someone that is able to comprehend the most convoluted English, I can say that the Author clearly has a wealth of knowledge they are trying to share, but their written style is painful, dull, and confusing. It isn't even ostentatious, just... pretentious and limiting. Whomever proof read this book is a jerk.

This book ought to bear the title "An archeologists-eye view of Sumer and the Sumerians". That the author is an archaeologist is obvious on every page. We have endless descriptions of things like burial pits or the foundations of building, and after a while that gets really tedious. On the other hand, many important topics that ought to be in a book about "Sumer and the Sumerians", such as a discussion of Sumerian literature and the Sumerian language are completely absent. Topics such as agriculture - the foundation on which Sumerian civilisation rested - and its climatic and edaphic setting are mentioned only in a few words, and are not adequately explored.The good thing abut this book is that it makes you aware of the raw archaeological data on which our understanding of Sumer depends, but I wish the author had done more with that data.