Customer Reviews

The Civilization Of Ancient Egypt

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I just came off of reading another book by Paul Johnson, "A History Of The American People", so this was quite a switch! Once again, Mr. Johnson has impressed me with his erudition and pleased me with his smooth style. Right up front, let me say that I was as ignorant as you can get concerning this subject before I read this book, so my knowledge level had nowhere to go but up! If you already know a lot about this subject you may not find this book worthwhile. That being said, if you don't know much about ancient Egypt this book is a good starting point. Mr. Johnson gives you some actual history as far as talking of events and dynasties, etc. but the majority of the book deals with the religious beliefs of the Egyptians and their art, and how the two were intimately connected. There is also an excellent chapter on hieroglyphs. One of the strong suits of the book is how it gets you into the mind of the ancient Egyptians and you start to see things the way they might have. Mr. Johnson explains such things as why, on wall paintings, people were shown in profile rather than giving us a frontal view and why the Egyptian artist intentionally chose not to use aerial perspective. (Sorry, you'll have to read the book to find out!) Suffice it to say, when you look at things after knowing what the Egyptians believed you will be able to appreciate their achievements all the more. The book is also useful in showing the link between Egyptian art and religion and what came later (Greek and Roman culture; Christianity; Judaism, etc.) Highly recommended!

I visited Egypt in October and received this book for Christmas. I could not put it down. It is the most informative book I have ever read about ancient Egypt. It includes excellent photographs and well designed and well placed tables. It answered all of my questions about the various dynasties, religion, culture, daily life and the fall of the kingdom. The geographic isolation of Egypt is an important factor in its development that I had not considered. As is the fact that Egypt was the first unified nation and that it was ruled by relgious principles, not militarism. This is an excellent book and should be on every educated person's bookshelf.

Like many of Mr. Johnson's admirers, I can just barely see how he manages to read so much. But how he is able to write so much on top of that--incredible. Now he has turned his attention to ancient Egypt. Because this is a dead civilization, there is not much occasion here for political controversy, and so some of Mr. Johnson's fans may miss his pungent polemics. They needn't. He has compiled an largely satisfying popular account of the land of the pharaohs, which also leaves the reader curious to read more deeply.

The book is not a history. The historical narrative portion stops at the last great pharaoh, Ramesses III, and we turn instead to chapters devoted to the Egyptian attitudes of government, religion, art, and death. Johnson does a great job taking us inside the minds of the ancients by showing how, to them, these ideas were inseparable. His sources and illustrations are well chosen, though he continues to be plagued by sloppy editing. A couple of incorrect captions, a reference to an work of art "now in Leningrad", that sort of thing.

Each of his chapters are distillations of subjects which could have been (and are) the subjects of entire books. The account of the Western rediscovery of Egypt during the Age of Science flitted by too quickly for me--I wanted to read more about the adventures of Napoleon's very talented egyptologists. And the classical Greek historians like Herodotus are dismissed as little more than purblind tourists. Well, sure; based on what we now know.

This is a fast-paced book about a static civilization, a coffee-table book with serious, substantial text. Sounds oxymoronic? Well, it's true. Paul Johnson does it again!

This book contains lots of interesting speculation about the rise and fall of Egyptian civilization. However, the book contains no footnotes, and Johnson doesn't always make it very clear (at least not to me) when he is describing factual reality and when he is making educated guesses about what caused those factual realities. As a result, I found it hard to figure out what was fact and what was speculation.

On the positive side, Johnson's speculation is certainly interesting. For example, Johnson suggests that the rise of Egypt was in part due to the nation's dependence on the Nile; the river ran through the nation (making travel by water easy) but agriculture not right on the river required artificial irrigation (thus requiring strenuous collective effort, which led to a centralized state).

Why did Egypt decline? Johnson emphasizes the complexity of the Egyptian alphabet (which discouraged mass literacy) and the possibility that Egypt's gold mines ran out of gold (thus reducing the state's wealth, which reduced the state's ability to control the military and feudal lords).

Text book Egyption history is what you like get this book.