The Hittites: And Their Contemporaries in Asia Minor (Ancient Peoples and Places) download epub

This book is rather outdated unfortunately. Hittite studies were only invented in the beginning of the last century so a difference of only a few years can matter a lot. This book is over thirty years old. They're still translating texts after all, and piecing together bits of data to make them fit. Even at the time I doubt it was especially good even as an introduction. At that time Gurney's book was the best available on the subject and it had been written in the '50s. This book is under 200 pages and is very basic. The data on archaeological excavations is quite good but again, it's limited. This book was written as part of a series which means that the author is not an expert in the field and isn't as familiar with the material as someone who devoted serious study to it. The best feature is the copious illustrations which alone prevent me from giving it Two Stars. Even if you have better books on the Hittites I'd recommend this one for the pics. Speaking of better books I'd recommend the one I mentioned above or better yet Trevor Bryce's The Kingdom of the Hittites and Life and Society in the Hittite World.

Before heading to Turkey, I wanted to beef up on the histories of this wonderful geographical area. The Hittites covered much of the area, although it is hard to go into great depth due to how ancient the nation was. This writer did a wonderful job and I learned a great deal. The time spent reading was worth it.

This review is for the original edition of THE HITTITES, published in 1975. It has been revised and enlarged in this edition.

While it may seem obvious to suggest to anyone who is interested in the culture of the Hittites or of ancient Anatolia that they should look for the most up-to-date edition, I think it really depends on the reader's previous knowledge of the Hittite empire, and what it is they are looking to get out of their research. In other words, I have a hard time believing that, as a casual reader, I missed out on anything critical by reading this earlier version. If I had had a choice between picking up this older version and the newer, I would have gone for the newer, but I found this for sale at a library discard sale for pocket change. With those parameters in place, I was reasonably satisfied; and a cursory search on the internet did not reveal anything that contradicted the substance of what was contained in this earlier edition.

Although this book is part of a series, as a previous reviewer mentioned, the author for this particular installment, J. G. MacQueen, was a former Scholar of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Turkey, and has done field survey-work and excavated in Turkey (according to information about the author), so it seems inaccurate to me to characterize him as someone who is "not an expert in the field and isn't as familiar with the material as someone who devoted serious study to it." There may well be better books on the subject by different authors, but Mr. MacQueen's qualifications--and his handling of the material--in no way suggested to me he was unqualified to write the book.

Records from the Hittite civiliation are scarce--much of what is known about them is reconstructed from the archeological evidence; and as the author states in his preface, any book about them is going to be a work in progress, as new evidence is continually being uncovered. Be that as it may, the Hittites flourished in what is now Central and Western Turkey and Northern Syria from around 1600 to 1180 B.C.E., and the book covers the background of the area and environment in which the culture arose; speculates on where the Hittites originally came from; and details their history, daily life, religious customs, method of warfare, and art and literature. There are a wide variety of illustrations throughout the text, and 34 pages of black-and-white photographs at the back. Marginal notes refer to which photographic plate is indicated by the text, so the reader can easily flip to the back and see amplification of the author's meaning, which is helpful, as several plates illustrate more than one point.

While presented as an introduction to the Hittite Empire, the author's manner suggested it was written for an audience that, while not so well-informed about the Hittites per se, has a better than average grasp on the terms and descriptions of Bronze Age cultures in general. For instance, though I could gather from context that the terms referred to specific dates and were probably associated with uncovered strata from archeological digs, I had no previous knowledge of terms like EB I, EB II, Troy IV, etc. They do in fact represent dates (EB for Early Bronze age), but I don't think the author clarifies many similar concepts and phrases well enough for lay readers. Conversely, I thought the author went into too much detail when describing the layout of cities and housing and the temples of the Hittites. My impression, which dovetails with the description of the author's experience, is that this book was written primarily from an archeological perspective, and those readers who find that viewpoint intriguing are likely to gain a great deal of information. Readers who are more interested in a narrative approach, like me, may feel as though the book is hit-and-miss.

If there were no new edition to this book, I would probably have rated this edition four stars rather than three. While I did have some quibbles with it, it was still an interesting introduction to a culture I knew little about. As I said before, I would suggest picking up the revised and enlarged edition if you had a choice between the two, though I felt well-served by this older copy. Based on this installment, I will probably now look for other volumes in this series (Ancient Peoples and Places), of which THE HITTITES was number eighty-three.