The Knowledge Gathering Phase

So, during Christmas and New Year's, we're planning to go on a road trip, which should include the main Pharaonic sites in Cairo, Luxor, and, maybe, Aswan.

Since I am probably one of the most ignorant people in the world about Egyptian history, I have decided to do some research before venturing on this journey. So, I searched for the right book, and I think I just found the most suitable one. I went to the Egyptology section at "Foyles", one of the largest book shops in London, and there was just too much choice. I probably spent the good part of 3 hours there trying to choose the right book, until I found "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt".

What absolutely caught my attention, and made me decide that this should be the right book for me, was this part in the Preface: "Each of the authors of this history has set out to elucidate the underlying patterns of social and political change and to describe, with due regard to the dangers of archaeological and textual distortion and bias, the changing face of Egyptian culture, from the biographical details of individuals to the social and economic factors that shaped the lives of the population as a whole."

I suppose I was always a bit sceptical about reading the normal kind of Egyptian history book, which only described what each king and queen did, and never really shed any light on the lives and characteristics of the population at the different times. So, I am hoping that this will be a good starting point, now that I found some promising reading.