More Books of the Week (Continued from page 105.)
A century ago little or nothing was known of Assyria. Since then the spade under skilled direction has unearthed a
vast mass of material for Assyrian history. Its extent and character may be realized from the very substantial Early History of Assyria to 1000 B.c. which Mr. Sidney Smith, of the British Museum, has just written (Chatto & Windus, 37s. 6d.) as a companion to the late L. W. King's Sumer and Akkud and Babylon. Mr. Smith wins our confidence at the outset by admitting that there is much uncertainty about what happened in the fourth and third millenia before Christ. But, while distinguishing facts from fancies, he makes good use of the new evidence from Ur and elsewhere and presents a reasonably coherent account of the development of Assyria
into a great empire. He writes well and has some excellent illustrations and maps.
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