Between Two Rivers

Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History

De: Moudhy Al-Rashid

Narrado por: Moudhy Al-Rashid

'I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves ... It melts away the sense of time. A wonderful read.'
TOM HOLLAND

'A tender, moving and vivid history of ancient Mesopotamia and how it still speaks to us.'
ROBERT MACFARLANE

'Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece.'
GEORGE MONBIOT

'Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history ... spellbinding.'
NEW SCIENTIST


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Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

©2025 Moudhy Al-Rashid (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Great Insight into Ancient Mesopotamia

I really enjoyed the glimpses into life over 2 millenia ago. A very relatable history.

Enthusiasm

This is a fantastic listen. The subject matter is made accessible and related brilliantly to universal human experience. The fact that the author narrates always helps but it is rare that they are this good at it.
Thank you for a great listen.