Five Empires in Ancient Mesopotamia

The Assyrian Empire was the first of five empires that emerged in the Near East in the first millennium BCE; it was succeeded by the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, Seleucid, and Parthian Empires. Based on a set of uniquely rich sources, this co-authored volume traces the history of imperialism in Western Asia by focusing on Mesopotamia, center of the first imperial states but later subjected to imperial rule by foreigners.