A History of Ancient Egypt.

• Author: Evans, Linda
• Position: Book review

A History of Ancient Egypt. By MARC VAN DE MIEROOP. Malden, Mass.: WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2011. Pp. xxiii + 400. illus. $44.95 (paper).

Explaining Egypt's long and complicated history, especially to students, requires clarity and a good sense of what to include and what to leave out. Marc Van De Mieroop's A History of Ancient Egypt achieves this objective and in so doing provides a volume that will be very appealing to a wide audience. Writing in an engaging style, the author makes it clear from the outset that the book reflects his "personal selection" of the vast number of topics for which secure historical data exist. His chosen focus is Egypt's complex political history, as revealed by its written sources. Unlike many other volumes of its kind, however, Van De Mieroop's avoids a strictly sequential approach and the simplistic divisions of the ancient king lists in order to emphasize the often untidy nature of Egypt's political development. Nevertheless, each chapter opens with a Summary of Dynastic History, outlining in chronological order the particular people and events that the author has decided to examine within each time period; a full king list by dynasty is also provided at the end of the volume.

The book is sprinkled liberally with Sources in Translation: excerpts from different types of documents (royal, religious, legal. biographical, etc.) that help to tie each historical period to relevant primary texts. Van De Mieroop stresses throughout the volume that there is often a range of possible interpretations of the available evidence, from which he has chosen to present just one. Conflicting views are highlighted in breakout boxes in which Key Debates in Egyptology (for example, the question of climate change and the First Intermediate Period, the identity of the Hyksos, and Cambyses' treatment of the Apis bull, etc.) are discussed briefly. In addition, boxes containing Special Topics provide in-depth information about various issues mentioned in each chapter.

The volume opens by placing Egyptian history in its environmental and cultural contexts. Divided into six parts, chapter 1, "Introductory Concerns," delineates the chronological and geographical boundaries that define the study of ancient Egypt before describing the country's major environmental features, its different forms of documentary evidence (papyri, ostraca, and monumental inscriptions), the Egyptian concept of kingship, modern historical subdivisions, and Egypt's...