Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction

Be careful to buy this book only if you want to learn about Egyptology as an academic discipline, more than about what scholars think really went on in ancient Egypt. This book is a learned and fascinating introduction to the study of ancient Egypt. If you are looking to understand how scholars painstakingly piece together tiny shards of ambiguous and insufficient evidence to construct an understanding of ancient Egypt, this is your book. If you seek a primer the current state of knowledge on life, religion, politics, culture, and society in ancient Egypt, you should probably buy another book. I bought the book out of a desire to learn more about what current scholarly thinking about ancient Egypt in order to open up a window on that fascinating civilization. Instead, I discovered a compelling (if dry) narrative on how Egyptologists work and reach conclusions. This is a really interesting topic in its own right, and, of course, it is fundamental to evaluating what is presented as "what we know" about ancient Egypt in an intelligent fashion. However, you might not want to spend time learning about Egyptology, but instead want to learn about ancient Egypt. If so, this is likely not the book for you right now.

The title of this excellent entry in an excellent series should be 'Egyptology', as it is more about the study of ancient Egypt than the history itself. At 190 pages, it is a little longer than many entries in this series, but the final 30 of those pages are References, Timeline and so on, which provide a good springboard for further study. Pharaonic Egypt was Earth's first great empire and it lasted for 3 millennia. The author examines the way in which that civilization has been perceived, interpreted and mythologized by, among others, Victorians seeking verification of Biblical stories and by modern, popular culture. Ian Shaw writes well and comes across as an erudite and objective scholar. He has not used this book as an opportunity to put forward any unorthodoxy of his own, and has not been afraid to include many quotations from other Egyptologists. All of this makes the book a perfect introduction to this fascinating subject.