Reviews for Coming West A Natural History of Home

The average rating for Coming West A Natural History of Home based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-10-19 00:00:00 Keg Griffee An engaging detailed and delightful collection of stories of personal investment in the natural countryside and fauna of the Canadian West. Just a perfect read for a rainy day, and a fresh pot of delicious herbal tea. You'll relish it, just like I did.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-01 00:00:00 Kate Di Pietro I found this book to be informative, perhaps because I don't have a lot of background knowledge about Babylon. The writing is dated, and some chapters of this book seem designed for specialists, while others seem designed for general readers. As a result, it didn't really cohere into one book with a clear message. Nevertheless, I learned quite a few interesting facts. For example: *In its last centuries, Babylonia was not very stable. Assyrians took over in 732, were ejected in 625, and were completely destroyed only thirteen years after that. The Babylonian regime that replaced the Assyrians was itself ejected by Persia after less than a century in power. *I had always thought there was just one ziggurat (the inspiration for the Biblical Tower of Babel)- but in fact, there were a few of them, and the largest may have been as much as 300 feet high. *The Code of Hammurabi was remarkably severe; for example, a temple woman (the local equivalent of Rome's vestal virgins) could be burnt (presumably to death) just for entering a wine shop. *Although Babylon was very polytheistic, Babylonians wrote wisdom literature that seems awfully similar to the Book of Proverbs. *The Babylonian calendar, like the modern Jewish calendar on which it is based, had "leap months" to make the lunar and solar years coincide. (However, we Jews just have a second Adar in the spring; Babylonians had the option of adding a second Elul in the fall). *Apparently, the city of Babylon declined because a river changed course, and its location no longer made sense.