Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

(Bloomsbury, £30) The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Nile Valley by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 shone a blazing light on the classic civilisation of ancient Egypt. Inside was a treasure house of antiquity, the golden mask of the boy king dazzling today as brilliantly as when it was first seen nearly a century ago. Wilkinson’s book honours the fruits of this exploration not only with dynamic research into the great eras of Egyptian civilisation but with an array of colour pictures that are in themselves a treasure.

The key to the longevity of the Pharoahs’ empire, which has outlasted any other in the world, is the divine right of its rulers, a “powerful ideal” in which the relationship between the king and his subjects was “based upon coercion and fear, not love and admiration; where royal power was absolute and life was cheap”.

The author’s approach in this culturally informative journey through time welds an iron scholarship to a layman’s dream. There is much to absorb in this dynastic saga with the pyramids and Sphynx at centre stage, Alexander and Cleopatra, the Rosetta Stone, rebellion and repression, epic battles, the life-giving Nile and the birth of a nation state that surely has no peer in history. Take this great book with you on your next boat to Egypt.