The History of Ancient Egypt

I've had this series on DVD for several years and watch it every so often. I was excited to see it on CD and at such a great price! I've been listening to it in the car, and each day I can't wait to hear what's next! Some days I sit in my driveway after I get home to finish a lecture. Bob Brier is very knowledgeable and passionate about ancient Egypt. He is fun to listen to, he really is a great storyteller and brings the past to life. I would love to go on one of the many Egyptian tours that he does throughout the year!

This is a great course given by a very passionate instructor whose enthusiasm is contagious. Prof. Brier is very literate yet communicates easily with the laymen and keeps the subject interesting.

Best of the Great Courses series. Fun and easy to follow.

This Bob is engaging, informative and when I got to the end, I wanted more!

I am not sure how to rate this. It was more a transcript of lecture notes. Many of which about ancient Egypt were interesting, but it was more an overview of a thousand years of history. There were some details in areas but really if you are interested in a certain dynasty more research will be needed. Also this was read from lecture notes they could have been cleaned up a bit to flow better. There were parts I could forgive if recorded live but I don’t think they were. It was interesting as a base knowledge to start learning about ancient Egypt.

I am traveling to Egypt soon & I wanted to learn about Egypt before I went. Knowing about the history of Egypt will help me to understand and better appreciate what I am seeing. I found Bob Brier easy to listen to & to understand. He starts out explaining the pre-history of Egypt & then tells a chronological history of the country. Every so often he breaks up the history lectures with off topic chapters; for example, what Bonaparte did in Egypt, Egyptian mythology, obelisks, mummies, etc. There was a lot of information to digest. So after I finished it the first time I immediately restarted the book. I also like to google what Dr Brier is talking about. It really helps and I know exactly what the Narmer palette looks like.

This is 8 DVD's presented by Dr Bob Brier on ancient Egyptian history. 3000BC through 0AD. He's great at explaining many things, and makes it interesting. This was recorded 1999, so some of the information may be dated, but still a great introduction. There is an accompanying book which didn't come with the DVD's I got, but found it online through a library loan program.

3.5 stars This audiobook consists of 48 lectures discussing the history of Ancient Egypt. It starts with prehistoric Egypt and goes through to the end of the Egyptian empire with Cleopatra. This audiobook covers a little bit of the whole history of Egypt, which is great for those who have little knowledge of Egypt or who only know parts of the history. Or if you are like me and are a fan of anything involving Ancient Egypt and just want to learn more. The lectures were very easy to understand and followed a linear timeline so it was easy to keep up with the progressing history. The audiobook also came with a supplemental PDF document of the lectures that you can reference while listening to the audiobook. Also it has pictures. The narrator, Bob Brier, is an experienced Egyptologist. You can clearly tell he knows his history. I really loved how he breaks down the Egyptian names and what the parts of the name meant. It also made it easier to pronounce them. I did have a few issues with him though. My biggest issue was that he biased and frequently gave his opinion on things instead of just sticking to the facts. He also repeated himself a lot which got old after listening for a few hours. Also at one point he uses the word retarded to describe Alexander the Great's halfbrother which I did not like at all. Another thing that should be noted is that these lectures are now dated. This was published in 2013 and new discoveries and facts have changed some things, but like he states at the end if you are interested in any of these topics do further research and reading. It should also be noted that since these are lecture formats that they are not edited. A few times Brier misspoke and corrected himself. This became confusing during the discussion about the Ramses line of kings (Lecture 34) because he said Ramses the Great a few times instead of the correct Ramses (there were 11 I believe). I actually went back and read this section in the PDF to get a better picture of which Ramses did what. Overall, this was a fascinating lecture series and I learned a lot. I recommend this audiobook for anyone interested in Ancient Egyptian history. Just remember that it is dated now and he is biased.