Customer Reviews

Science in Ancient Mesopotamia

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The editorial review of this series from School Library Journal is wrong. The new editions of these books do not "expand greatly" on the original 1988 editions; they greatly contract. The 1988 edition of the books on Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia had eight chapters and 92 pages. This new edition gives them only only six chapters and 64 pages, and the word count per page is reduced. Indeed color pictures and illustrations were added and the glossary expanded, but the text is reduced to about two thirds of the original. Students are better off reading the original editions in the Watts "First Book" series.

This book is part of the Science of the Past series. This book examines the Mesopotamians' knowledge of medicine, mathematics, astronomy and metallurgy. It concludes with a glossary, and a list of Internet sites.

This book is very short indeed, the main body being a mere 40 pages long, including some pages that are mostly taken up by pictures, but excluding the glossary and so forth. The pictures are excellent, and the information seems to be correct. However, this book is rather too short to provide much information. Overall, I do not recommend this book.

Because there is so little covering Mesopotamia, I still find this book helpful even if it is not as good as the others in this series. It would be nice if more resources were written on the ancient Mesopotamian culture, especially considering what is happening today. Meanwhile, we will use what we can, including this book, in our homeschooling. We use all the books of this series, the 'Gilgamesh' series by Ludmila Zeman, "Ancient Egyptians and their Neighbors-An Activity Guide (including Hittites, Nubians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians), and "Our Young Folks' Josephus" (primary history spine covering Israel and its relationship with the surrounding cultures of that time) in our homeschool. It works well for us.

I don't think I would give this book a negative review exactly, but it is not good enough to get a positive one either. While there are not as many books on Ancient Mesopotamia as Egypt, for example, this one only qualifies as a library rent not a purchase. The Science in Ancient X series is a great idea, but this particular one takes a backseat.

We got it for part of our homeschooling unit on ancient civilizations but it didn't hold the interest.

Recommended for Mesopotamia: Oakes (Step Into Mesop), Brown Bear Books (Ancient Mesop), and Jane Shuter (The Sumerians).

This book is part of the Science of the Past series. This book examines the Mesopotamians' knowledge of medicine, mathematics, astronomy and metallurgy. It concludes with a glossary, and a list of Internet sites.

This book is very short indeed, the main body being a mere 40 pages long, including some pages that are mostly taken up by pictures, but excluding the glossary and so forth. The pictures are excellent, and the information seems to be correct. However, this book is rather too short to provide much information. Overall, I do not recommend this book.

We accidentally came across this book while perusing the library's Ancient history section. I checked it out for both my 4th grader and 6th grader, and they both enjoyed it. As a parent, it gave me multiple opportunities to discuss a number of "discoveries" that we take for granted today and to help my children really appreciate just how many years and years of development societies go through to establish certain mathematical and scientific principles. Great book for discussing things that are relevant to my children. This, as far as I see it, is a great way to study history: to understand where we came from and just how we got to where we are today.

We wanted very much to like this book -- it is, after all, about two of our favorite subjects (history and science)!

Sadly, we found that it was disrespectful of Mesopotamian accomplishments, deriding this ancient people for not thinking like modern people do. We gave up partway through, even thought the science was interesting, because the heavy layer of unwarranted judgement made the book unreadable for us.

I hope later cultures are treated more respectfully.

It is very short but contains a lot of interesting facts. As for that reviewer who complained about how short it is, while it could have been a bit longer, it is after all a book written for upper elementary and lower middle school students. I also think it would be a good book for someone who is learning English. One thing I found odd was that while there is a photo of an ancient Mesopotamian temple and a very detailed description of what is obviously a ziggurat the author never uses that word and it's not in the glossary. The ziggurat has come to be symbol of ancient Mesopotamia. He also doesn't mention the Tower of Babel which is Mesopotamia's most famous ziggurat.

Science in Ancient Mesopotamia. Even thought, It is a short book. It shows that this civilization was ahead of any other civilization in science, medicine, math, etc. I would still recommend it.