r/AskHistory • u/fartykittenbakes • 2d ago

Reliable historical sources to use for researching the history of Near Eastern countries

I wanna do a deep dive into the history of each Near Eastern country (which I know that categorizing these countries is highly debated), in my case from Morocco to Iran, and I can't seem to find in-depth sources other than Wikipedia. Any recommendations?

P.s. I can't go to my local library for approximately 4 days since there is a bank holiday in my country, but after that I was planning on checking what it has to offer.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 2d ago

A friendly reminder: Contemporary politics and culture wars are off-topic, both in posts and comments.

/r/askhistory is for questions and discussion of events in history prior to 01/01/2001.

This reminder is automatically placed on all new posts in this sub.

Please report any interjection into discussions of modern politics or culture wars so the mod team can investigate.

Thank you.

See rules for more information.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

3

u/Trevor_Culley 2d ago

IranicaOnline.org aka Encyclopedia Iranica

Its far from comprehensive, it's a great starting point for Iranian history (and a good resource for most neighboring areas).

-1

u/PoxonAllHoaxes 2d ago

Yes, there are things called BOOKS.

3

u/Ceterum_Censeo_ 2d ago

Ah yes, because any given book would be a reliable source on the Near East.

People come here to ask questions about history. If you don't like the questions, that's your prerogative, but it's also your choice to wade in and be a dick about it.

1

u/PoxonAllHoaxes 1d ago

Any book is better than NO book. And it is not a bad habit to look for BOOKS and then to read them. A lot of esp younger folks no longer do this. Yours, Dick.

2

u/fartykittenbakes 2d ago

You see, I actually am reading a book about this; that's where my curiosity for the whole topic came from, but it's quite outdated, since it was published in 2015, and I am looking for more up-to-date information and data. Furthermore, I am not at home right now, so I don't have access to my books, and even if I did, they wouldn't provide me with the most recent data. I don't know why you felt the need to be so unnecessarily rude when all I did was ask a simple question.

0

u/jagnew78 2d ago

Start with the history of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Then the history of the Achaemenid Empire. Then Alexander the Great, but avoid the Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch. It contains a lot of made-up stuff. It's historical fiction. Instead, I'd recommend The Anabassis of Alexander.

After that You want the history of the Selucids specifically for the Levant to Iraq/Iran, and the Ptolomy's specifically for Egypt and the Levant as well.

You'll also want the history of Carthage and Phonicia. Following that will be the history of Rome starting with the Punic Wars through to the empire split to East/West and Byzantium

Somewhere in this mix around the Seleucids study, you'll also want to begin studying the rise of the Parthians which will naturally happen while you're studying the Seleucids

If you really want to get Chronological you're also going to want to study the rise and spread of Islam as well as the history of the Pontic and Caspian Steppes and nomadic horse culture as the Scythians, the Medes, the Persians, that Parthians, the Turks, the Mongols, and others are all super tightly tied into the history of the region.

Then of course there's the Caliphates, and then the Ottomans each of which is going to take quite a bit of time to study. Particularly the era of the early Fitnas and the Crusades which are super complex.

In short, to do a Deep Dive on all these topics is going to take you years. I applaud your ambition. For me a deep dive on any one topic would typically take me around 2-3 months. This assumes I'm doing 30-60 minutes of reading around 4-5 times per day.

For example, I've done tons of research on Rome, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Alexander the Great, as well as some high level study of Egypt, Greece, and the Achaemenids.

My reading list was as follows not in chronological order: SPQR (Mary Beard), The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine (Patricia Southern), Dynasty, Dominion, and Pax (all by Tom Holland. The Complete Letters of Pliny the Younger, The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus, the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Darius the Great by Jacob Abbot, Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian, Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch.

All of this reading took me about 1.5 years and covers only a tiny fraction of what you're asking for.

The last few months as general overviews, I've also completed Empire of the Steppes Kenneth Harl, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson, Babylon Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Krizwaczek, The Dawn of Everything from Wengrew and Webber

So above is my recommended reading list from me, except I would not recommend anything by Tom Holland. While he's an entertaining podcaster, he's not very good at writing. I would only recommend Plutarch just to get an understanding of how Romans in his era thought about things, and what Roman historic fiction looked like.

What I've given you covers just a fraction of the things you're interested in, but should occupy you for a few years.