It was a civilization that lasted so long that its last independent ruler lived closer to us today than when its most defining structural achievements were built. The Story of Egypt: The Civilization that Shaped the World by Joann Fletcher shows the cultural development around the Nile that led to political and religious institutions that stood alone for nearly four millennia until it was absorbed by multinational, culture reshaping empire.

One blurb on the book stated that Fletcher wrote a “revisionist history” of Ancient Egypt, with that mind the only thing that could truly be considered “revisionist” is that it turns out that half the Egyptians were women and there was more than one female pharaoh (Hatshepsut) before the Ptolemies—in fact at least ten. Throughout the book Fletcher essentially goes ruler to ruler so how the political and religious life of the nation changed or stayed the same throughout the centuries. Given Fletcher has only the records of the elite, it hard for her to cover the life of the ordinary people through as time progresses even ordinary people learned to write and as that happened, she would mention it. Where there is not academic consensus on the chronological front, Fletcher puts forward her interpretation which to me wouldn’t be considered revisionist as that would be more a theory from knowledgeable academic who is putting her two cents in as every other academic is doing. As stated above the “revisionist” issue revolved around how much women were involved in the political and religious life of the ruling class, Fletcher throughout the book laid out how royal women were integral to maintaining political and religious power and legitimacy for pharaohs. Along with that Fletcher brought a new interpretation into the led up and consequences of Akhenaten’s monotheistic revolution, which while I don’t consider revisionist was a new spin on things that I felt shined a new light on events. Throughout the book the quotes Fletcher used from other sources were in quotation marks but without any footnote or reference number so when you looked in the back for any information you must remember the wording of the quote to find the source which wasn’t very efficient. Fletcher’s references to early 20th-century Egyptologists that put the male-spin on Egyptian culture while not full snarky were close even though I understood the point she wanted to bring across, it could have been worded it differently to get the same thing across. Yet, these two things can’t truly harm the overall quality of this history of Ancient Egypt.

The Story of Egypt brings the millennia of a ancient nation’s history into a readable form. While Joann Fletcher looks at that history from another angle, it’s only “revisionist” if you can’t come at this book with an open mind. ( )

Great read. I hadn't previously warmed to Fletcher's writing because she always seemed overly ready to grasp the out of left field explanation, and her overtly feminist approach was always obvious. But this, a popular history of Egypt from pre-dynastic times to Cleopatra, more than 3000 years in just under 400 pages, is a cracking read. As well as the obvious stories of the various dynasties, individual pharaohs, their wars, their building and their tombs, she always works in a generous dollop of the views of the ordinary folk of Egypt, via scraps of papyrus, graffiti and their modest tombs. It makes for a lively story, very readable. Egyptophiles who don't want to tackle dry academic tomes will love this. ( )