The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World

by Selena Wisnom

The Library of Ancient Wisdom by Selena Wisnom is the story of ancient Mesopotamia, in particular the story of Ashurbanipal and his library. Ashurbanipal was the king of the Assyrians in the 7th century BCE, at that time the largest empire the world had ever seen. He loved books—which in his day took the form of clay tablets written in cuneiform. Used for more than three millennia, more than half of human history was written in cuneiform, the author points out, in a plea for more people to study it.