Books on Ancient Egypt?

by DonOfAlbion

I'm currently studying history and we've gone over a lot of topics during my study thus far. However we've not gone over 'ancient' Egypt as much as I'd like. Do you know any historically correct books about Egypt's history in the time range +/- 4.000 BC all the the way through 600/700 A.D? Specifically I'm looking for books about broader topics like Egyptian mythology, culture, military etc. Books that cover a single person/event are of less importance, and I haven't been able to find any book that looks promising that fits my 'demands'. Please, any suggestion would be welcome!

Bentresh

Check out the Egypt section of the AskHistorians reading list.

If you're looking for light reads, try Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt and Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Merz. They're written in a lively, engaging style that is unfortunately somewhat rare in Egyptology.

Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs by Matthias Seidel and Regine Schulz contains some useful essays and lovely photographs.

A History of Ancient Egypt by Marc van de Mieroop and An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt by Kathryn Bard are more detailed overviews of the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt. Both books pair well with the two volume A Companion to Ancient Egypt, which covers all aspects of Egyptian history and society.

Finally, there's the excellent History of Egypt podcast, which is currently up to the Amarna period (ca. 1350-1330 BCE).

GorgeousTurtle

Have you checked out the recommendations on the book wiki? Several that fit your criteria of dates and broad topics: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/middleeast#wiki_ancient_egypt

I can personally attest that Gods and Men in Egypt and Village Life in Ancient Egypt are quite good.

Bookworm153

I always like to recommend The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, as it gives a good chronological and thematic overview while still being reasonably detailed. It's relatively inexpensive and is available as an ebook, and the bibliography is thematically organised, so it's easy to find further reading ideas.