The History of Ancient Egypt – Audiobook Review
The History of Ancient Egypt – By: Bob Brier , The Great Courses
I have only recently started to listen to audiobooks. I’ve tried it before with fiction books and found them jarring, as the reader mimics the sound of the various characters sound childish and doesn’t resonate with my understanding of reading. It is because when you are reading, you do not actually vocalize the dialogues, and sometimes a character exists a long time in your imagination before it gets a trait, or peculiarity. For example when you read that a character’s voice is annoying, you do not virtually read all the dialogues in annoying or squeaky voice. But they do this in some audiobook (Stephen Fry, at least) so I stopped listening to audiobooks.
Only recently I tried with non-fiction books and I found them very ‘entertaining’, especially if the voice is of the author. It just sound more like listening to a podcast or Youtube review. I went a bit further and recently listened to this audiobook regarding Ancient Egypt and all its glory. And I must say it is amazing.
The series has 48 episodes (yes it’s long) but they have a different and distinct topic in every episode. The topics are interesting, since the material itself is amazing (pyramids, pharaohs and sphinx?) and they are sorted in coherent and great manner. For example it started with an overview of history, followed by why this history are studied and need to be studied and then how the process or school of thoughts are studied. I find it all very logical and coherent. Then there’s the debunking of myths followed by contradicting view of religions and beliefs in ancient Egypt. The series then went on to tell the stories from the earliest Pharaohs until their fall, and the following rulers until the time of Alexandre the Great and Cleopatra. If you’re like me, I had no idea the chronology of those leaders and thought half of them were never related to Egypt at all.
I’ve even been to Egypt before and remember after visiting the pyramid, declined on visiting the museum to see mummies, thinking that they were just dead people anyways and found them of no interest. After listening to this audiobook however, it has sparked my interest and I know a few things about those ancient leaders and their stories.
The materials and structure are great but I realized afterwards was that the reader of the book was essential to the experience. I like that Bob Brier, the narrator, talks about the ancient Egypt with deference but there’s always a hint of cynicism in his lecture (he calls the series, lectures). I only realized this afterwards because after finishing the audiobook, I watched a few more documentaries (History Channel, National Geographics) where the narrators talk about these Pharaohs in such mysterious over-the-top manner and aggrandization that it ingrates you. I mean, I know the Pharaoh was great and all but he still died and it is to us who is living to make our mark now.
Anyways back to Bob, he made the lecture very interesting and have some occasional smart jokes thrown along the way. He does speak with passion and his expertise and experiment, where he mummified a modern human did bring colour to the lectures.
This audiobook shows how great the development of ancient Egypt was and how long ago it was. Their history was so long that in the past, thousand years ago, they even has archeologist to study about their history and monuments. To see the pyramid still standing to this day is truly a wonder. The audiobook also shows that history repeats itself, either within the same dynasty or a different century. There are always the essence of hunger for power, ambition for greatness and also the conflict of loyalty and greed. Civilizations clamber over one another on resources and their leaders willing the people to fight for this. I think as long the pyramids still stand, and even long after that, humans will fight with one other and joust for greatness.
