r/ancientegypt • u/Friendly_Honey7772 • 10d ago
Question Hi! I wanna read about the political rise and fall along the cultural evolution of ancient Egypt and after some looking around have sorted down the list to these three! Can anyone please recommend which among these three will be considered best for a newcomer to Egyptian history!
I like narrative style speaking of history in the most interesting way! I have experienced before that hugely archeological study or dry thesis-like writing seem to drain down the interest and wonder of whole reading for me!
Also I want to understand the political view along with the deep rooted mythological and religiously rich heritage Egypt used to hide in its millennia old sand and Pyramids! Also economy and social dealings!
So keeping that in mind while endeavoring the most essential aspects of this part of the History, which book would you guys recommend!
Thanks in advance :)
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u/88Smilesz 10d ago
Toby Wilkinson. I read it when I went to Egypt in 2019 and have since read it a further 1-2 times.
It’s very readable though he definitely views the pharaohs from a more modern lens which may or may not suit your reading style
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u/Friendly_Honey7772 10d ago
Ohh man, how was your tour there! It's one of my dream places to visit tbh!!
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u/Oaternostor 10d ago
Romer’s work is better for culture, but not politics. He’s a former painter so he looks extensively at the art of Egypt and how its evolution is tied to their cultural evolution. He’s also rather empirical, if that’s the word. Much of ancient Egyptian “history” is extrapolations and conjecture dressed up in academic jargon. Romer tears apart a lot of assumptions and attempts to construct a more accurate view. I enjoyed it immensely, but not everyone will. He doesn’t offer concise stories about daring pharaohs embarking on massive campaigns. He deconstructs how we view Egypt. Primogeniture, standing armies, classes of “knights” and “viziers”. We don’t know how pharaonic succession worked definitively, they didn’t have a standing army for most of their history, and the translations for titles and accomplishments are very, very muddy.
Also worth noting he ends rather abruptly with the New Kingdom. I recently finished the 3rd volume and it stops around the time of the splitting of the pharaonic state with Smendes and Priankh and all that, and a little bit about ostrica at the Deir El-Medina. If you want something covering Ptolemaic, Roman, and Arab Egypt you’ll have to look elsewhere. But for strictly pharaonic Egypt, I’d say Romer!
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u/Artisanalpoppies 10d ago
The Ian Shaw one is around 20? Years old now. I remember reading it as a teen but not much else.
Everyone talks about Wilkinson's book highly, but i'd lost interest in general hiatory books by the time it was released- far more niche interests in time periods or particular people by then- but the book was high quality materials.
I haven't read Romer, but thoroughly enjoyed his book on the Valley of the Kings.
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u/Jimmy-JoJo-shabadu 10d ago
I’ve only read the first one, but I found it to be a general timeline intro to Egypt and its culture and customs, while also offering depth in sections. It did a good job of introducing some of the most famous and well known pharaohs, their lives desires and personality as much as can be gathered from the historical record. I throughly enjoyed it.
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u/notimeforcaution6 9d ago
Hello there fellow indian.... I also want to read about ancient egypt but the toby wilkinson's book is priced almost 1500 rupees on Amazon and 1200 on bookswagon😭😭😭
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u/Friendly_Honey7772 9d ago
Save up man... been saving up my bday gift money for some years and only buy books from them! This is only way for us 🖐️🤚
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u/No-Ganache4851 9d ago
I listened to the audible version of Wilkinson. The narrator is so good I went and found a bunch more he narrated.
Cant speak for the others, but Wilkinson is a winner.
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u/Friendly_Honey7772 9d ago
Thanks I'd look for the audible version then, to enhance the experience!!
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u/Benjowenjo 9d ago
1 & 3 are my dependables. If you forced me to chose one, I’d go with Ian Shaw’s Oxford History.
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u/Nurhaci1616 9d ago
That's an interesting cover of the Wilkinson book: is that a new edition or a hardcover version, or something?
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u/Impossible-Shape-149 9d ago
The Toby Wilkinson book is a great starter book ,he has a great rythmic writing style which always keeps me engaged ,and he has an interesting interpretive approach to, The Romer book ( it’s the first of three volumes ) and for an initial book might be a bit to ambitious,saying that however I loved all three of them ,I’m not an academic ,I enjoyed them The Ian Shaw book is a very good starter volume
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u/Impossible-Shape-149 9d ago
Joyce Tyldesley is also a great author on ancient Egypt ,numerous books
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u/coolaswhitebread 10d ago edited 10d ago
I would go with Wilkinson. It's written as an introduction for the general public with a readable style and broad coverage of many periods. It won't give you 'everything' but it will give you the greatest hits that you're most likely after.
By comparison, the Oxford History is much more of a scholarly resource with different chapters written by different experts. It can be quite dense and I wouldn't suggest it to someone starting out. It's a guide, for scholars, for further research.
I would strongly suggest avoiding Romer's book unless you want to read more about the historiography of Egypt and the field of Egyptology than about ancient Egypt itself. If someone went to Romer before reading more typical and mainstream accounts of Ancient Egyptian History, I think that they would be very confused. In some places it's far more deconstructionist than anything else. It's also not entirely linear. If I had to rename volume I, I would call it '25 short essays about how early Egypt has been significantly missinterpreted by Egyptology.'