The Struggle of the Nations

The Struggle of the Nations Maspero in this work gives us the second volume of his great historical trilogy. He shows in parallel views the part played in the history of the ancient world by the first Chaldæan Empire, by Syria, by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, of Egypt, and by the first Cossæan kings who established the greatness of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The great Theban dynasty is then exhibited in its romantic rise under the Pharaohs. Maspero writes not as a mere chronicler or reciter of events, but as a philosophical historian. He makes the reader understand how fatally the chronic militarism of these competing empires drained each of its manhood and brought Babylon and Assyria simultaneously into a hopeless condition of national anæmia. Equally pathetic is the picture drawn of the gradual but sure decay of the grand empire of the Pharaohs. Maspero, with masterly skill, passes a processional of these despots before our eyes.