Title: Great Photographs - Pity About the Text
Product review: This guide to Iraq has some wonderful photographs, but the text is larded with anachronistic assertions and factual errors. For example, on page 11, Munier gives the dates for the Sumerian civilization as between 3500 to 2350 BCE, and then a few lines later says that the Sumerians had "agricultural knowledge that produced an improved, iron plow". That's pretty amazing, since the Iron Age and the smelting of iron in the region didn't begin for another 1100 years! It's the equivalent of saying that the MP3 player was introduced in the Middle Ages. Other absurdities abound, especially when Munier begins covering the more recent history of the country and his admiration for the former regime begins to show. If you want good photographs, it might be worth the money, but ignore the text: let's hope better guidebooks to Iraq are soon produced!
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