About this episode

Joshua Hammer discusses his latest book and the historical context of archaeology in the 19th century.

On this episode, we welcome back to the program, journalist and author, Joshua Hammer who was our guest back on episode 112 in September 2016. Joshua's career has included serving as Newsweek Bureau Chief in, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, LA, Berlin, Jerusalem and Cape Town. His work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, National Geographic and the Smithsonian just to name a few publications. He is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including The Falcon Thief and The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (which we talked about in our last conversation). Joshua's just released and latest book is: The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing , published by Simon & Schuster. In the course of the conversation we dive deep into this fascinating book – everything from the Royal Asiatic Society's 1857 Great Cuneiform Challenge and the gentlemen who took part in it, to the difficulty of the digs in the Near East, to the "Assyrian Fever" (as Joshua calls it) that swept London in 1851- 1852, to the origins of the British Museum, to the topic of cultural appropriation of a country or people's…

People in this episode

Host: Steven Shalowitz

Guest: Joshua Hammer

Topics covered

• journalism
• archaeology
• cultural appropriation
• historical writing
• literature
• travel

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Newsweek, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Smithsonian

Books & works: The Falcon Thief, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing

Places: London, Near East, British Museum

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