Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Mediterranean

Been "reading" via Audible Charles Freeman's book Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Mediterranean. Dear reader(s) know that I love ancient Egypt. And I've been reading some books on ancient Greece and Rome lately. I've had this book in physical form on my shelves for some years now, but never started it. It's thick, heavy and small-fonted. I'm not saying I was scared, but...

But Audible is a great way to get through long books; see my mention on Goodreads about the 35-hour long Sexual Personae (which was great). This book is 33-odd hours long, and should have been titled Rome, then some Greece, and just a touch of Egypt. The Egypt section was maybe 10% of the entire book, and of course highlighted bad boy of Egypt Akhenaten and the Amarna period. Then Greece, making up maybe the next 30%. Then it was all about Rome. Sure, Greece and Rome make up the major party of Classics. But there are other civilizations in the Mediterranean. And Egypt stuck around throughout the time when Greece was the big boy in the Med. In fact, Egypt's history lasted about 5-6 times longer than Greece in its heyday. 

But I should have known going in with that title and the author being a Classicist. And that's okay. I need to learn more about ancient Greece and Rome. I did feel pretty great "knowing" everything the author wrote about Egypt in this book from previous reading and studying. Hurray Mike! But I think my next history read will be solely on Egypt. I love its history.

Do I recommend this book? Yes. If you can get it cheaply in physical form, do it as the pictures are great. But they're not necessary if you'd rather read it via Audible. 

For my book budget tracking, I used a credit for this and one monthly credit is $11.50, so my 2020 book expenses after this one is: $268.79. 

And for my Dewey Decimal challenge, this book is 909.09.