Unlike Kramer's "The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character", this book is a slow burner and a more difficult read, demanding more patience at least in the first half of the book. No matter how fascinating the history of ancient Sumer is, and no matter how much Jacobsen tried to compose this book for the non-specialist, we're still faced with a demanding text dedicated to only a subtopic of Sumer from one of the top-notch scholars in the field.

After the warning above, I have to say that I found the last few chapters much more motivating and exciting. Starting from the "Rise of Personal Religion", continuing with "Enûma Elish", and reaching its peak with the most famous Gilgamesh epic, Jacobsen's analysis is a tour de force of connecting today's understanding with the world view of 4000 years ago, as well as their connections to other cultures such as ancient Greek literature, Judaism, and Christianity.

It is not easy to take such ancient material, values and ideas barely visible from the traces on clay tablets, and bring them to life in such a lively manner, providing the reader with enough context to support the mind opening analyses. The author succeeded in this, and I can recommend this book after Kramer's book, if only for its second part. ( )