Albert T. Olmstead

Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead (March 23, 1880 – April 11, 1945) was an American historian and academic, who specialized in Assyriology. Quotes History of Assyria (1923) New York · London: Charles Scriber's Sons thumb|Assyria under the reign of Assurbanipal (668–627 BC) thumb|Palace gate at Dur-Sharrukin As the student of ancient history has come to realise that there is no such thing as “classical” culture or history, that the Romans were worlds distant from the Greeks, so he must carefully differentiate between Assyrians and Babylonians in his record. Preface (p. vii) One need not belong to the much-abused school of fife-and-drum historians to realise that a narrative in which the wars did not play a large part would not be true to the character of the people themselves. Preface (p. vii) The Assyrian was frankly and honestly an imperialist; there was bloodshed and cruelty in his warfare and he did not understand why he should not relate what he did. In this he was simply following current practice and his example has been followed in turn to recent days. Historians of Assyria in modern times have carefully tabulated each horror and have given the Assyrian a reputation for frightfulness. . . . Closer investigation has sometimes shown that the sin is against the truth and not against the human body. Preface (p. vii) A certain school of historians before 1914 seems to have determined to legislate war out of history, another found it only a convenient peg on which to hang diplomatic contests, a third eulogised the powder cart on which history advanced, but all were alike in refusing to tell their readers about the horrors of war they read in their sources. The historian of Assyria has one consolation, the blood of millions is not on his skirts. Preface (pp. vii–viii) Modern imperialism differs in one respect fundamentally from ancient, it is not so honest; such an innocent term as “punitive expedition” may cover a multitude of sins, from flat-nosed bullets to men blown in shreds from cannon, from the horrors of the Belgian rubber country to the horrors inflicted on Belgian peasants. Imperialism and imperialists are always terribly alike. Preface (p. viii) There are few periods of the ancient or of the earlier mediæval history which can compare with this last Assyrian century in fulness of source material and in variety of incident. Once we read these letters and prayers, we can no longer consider the Assyrian merely a brutal man of war; he, stands forth in all his humanity as a man like unto ourselves. Preface (p. x) Arabia moulded the character of the Semite; it was the Fertile Crescent which made him civilised and gave him a part in world history. Indeed, the whole story of the Mediterranean area is that of a struggle between the nomads, whether from the Arabian desert or the northern grasslands, and the earlier settled population. Ch. 2 (p. 7) External links