Mesopotamia
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Mesopotamia. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in ancient geography, a country of western Asia, situate between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was called, in the Old Testament, Aram Naharaim, Naharaim, or or "Syria Syria between the two waters," Aram, i. e., "Syria of the Plain," and is first mentioned in the Scriptures as the country where Nahor and his family settled (Gen. xxiv: 10). It was long part of the seat of the very ancient Babylonian dominion, and subsequently of the Mede, Persian, and Macedonian. The Romans obtained possession of Mesopotamia in 165. Jovian surrendered it to the Persians in 363. The Carmathians overran it in 902, and the Turks conquered it between 1514-1516. Modern Mesopotamia is largely peopled by Arabs, and comprised of the two pashalics of Bagdad and Diarbekr. Many years before the World War Germany longed for Mesopotamia, which would place her in a position to strike at India and Egypt. În 1897 a German company obtained a concession from the Sultan for a railroad from Konieh to Bagdad and Basra, on the Persian Gulf. Great Britain remonstrated, and diplomatic exchanges continued until the World War broke out. A British force invaded Mesopotamia in 1915, and after defeating the Turks, General Townshend occupied Kut-el-Amara, 100 miles from Bagdad. General Sir John Nixon, commanding the expedition, ordered General Townshend to advance on Bagdad, but when within 18 miles of that city the Anglo-Indian force met with a heavy defeat, and fell back on Kut, where they were besieged for 143 days and surrendered on April 28, 1916. The Turks subsequently defeated three Russian and British invasions. A British army under General Maude was more successful in 1917. Kut was recaptured on Feb. 23, and Bagdad fell March 7-10, but it was not until October of 1918 Unat the Turk was completely vanquished in Mesopotamia. In 1919 Great Britain was given practically a protectorate over the country.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
mes-o-po-ta'mi-a, the wide, low plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The name is Greek signifying the land between the rivers. Once it was a marvelously productive region, the seat of the earliest civilizations. The Assyrians dug canals and built aqueducts. One irrigation canal was 480 miles in length. Herodotus, who visited the delta of the Nile, traveled also in Mesopotamia. He stated that he dared not describe the wondrous fertility of this region lest he be set down as untruthful. Ancient writers called this valley the "Garden of the Lord." Wheat was the main crop. Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, apricots, figs, grapes, apples, pears, quinces, plums, cherries, melons of many kinds, chestnuts, filberts, and other nuts, grew in abundance. The gardens of the people yielded beans, peas, lentils, onions, cucumbers, spinach, and, indeed, most of the garden products we raise in the United States . Ancient Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria lay wholly or in part in Mesopotamia. The region has belonged at various times to the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Syrians, Parthians, Romans, Saracens, and Turks. It is now a Turkish department. Bagdad is its capital. Extensive irrigation canals and railroads bid fair to rescue large sections from the sands that have drifted in and ruined the country. See Bagdad ; Babylon ; Nineveh ; Euphrates
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 that Britain had just been given "practically a protectorate" over the country; that League of Nations mandate produced the Kingdom of Iraq, with Faisal I crowned in 1921, formal independence in 1932, and a republic after the coup of 1958. Aiton's "Turkish department" with its capital at Bagdad is now Baghdad, capital of a state whose economy rests on oil rather than the wheat and orchards Herodotus praised, and which has passed through the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, the invasions of 1991 and 2003, and the Islamic State occupation of Mosul in 2014-17. The ancient past described here has grown enormously: Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur in the 1920s and 1930s, and the decipherment of Sumerian cuneiform, revealed a civilization older than the Babylonia and Assyria these entries treat as the beginning. The rivers themselves have changed, cut back by upstream dams in Turkey and Syria, and the southern marshes drained under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s have only partly been reflooded.
Written for this edition, 2026.