A concise, yet thorough study of early Mesopotamia before c.1500 BC. The history of this area of modern-day Syria and Iraq and the people that inhabited it are discussed alongside some wonderful photographs of objects from the British Museum collection. Mesopotamia was a leading centre for literacy and spear-headed innovation and change in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. Julian Reade discusses the archaeological and textual evidence for early agriculture, the development of social and political complexity, the emergence of the city-states and later empires.