The Great Zigguratof Ur, in presentday IraqMohammed Al ali/AlamyBetween Two RiversMoudhy Al-Rashid (Hachette (UK, 20 February); W. W. Norton (US, 12 August))A new and spellbinding book tells the history of the very ancient past of Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid, a researcher at the University of Oxford, weaves together the many strands of the story of the region, which covers much of what is now Iraq.Ancient Mesopotamia has languished in obscurity, at least compared with the better-known Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilisations. So