In Afterglow of Empire, Aidan Dodson adds another to his series of books on Ancient Egypt, this time with a consideration of a lesser known period: the five centuries that followed the fall of the New Kingdom, most of which falls into the Third Intermediate Period. Dodson, a senior research fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, states that the purpose of the book is to provide an up-to-date, ‘accessible’ account of the Third Intermediate Period and the immediately preceding and succeeding decades. Chronological and genealogical concerns, which are the focus of some debate, are central to the research presented. Despite this, the book takes a narrative approach, and much of the chronological nitty-gritty is left to the appendices and the endnotes. The text thus manages to strike a good balance between the presentation of facts and readability.

In accordance with this approach, following a preface and introduction, the work is divided into six main chapters, organised chronologically. The primary focus throughout is on key figures and their chronology. The first chapter, ‘The Fall of the House of Rameses’, considers the reconstruction of the careers of various protagonists in the 11th century BCE. Included in ‘Of Tanis and Thebes’ is a discussion of the roles of Panedjem I, Pasebkhanut I, and Menkheperre. ‘The House of Shoshenq’ examines the chronology of the reigns of the Twenty-Second Dynasty. In ‘Disintegrations’, Dodson attempts to disentangle the genealogy and disintegration of Egypt into various more-or-less independent entities from the reign of Osorkon II. The chapter ‘Saviours from the South?’ describes the processes and effects of the Nubian and Assyrian actions in Egypt. Finally, ‘From Humiliation to Resistance’ briefly considers the fate of the Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth Dynasties and ends with Egypt's futile struggle to avoid absorption into the Persian Empire. There follow several appendices, which deal with chronology and genealogy and include, for example, hieroglyphic and transliterated titularies and a useful correlation of reigns, regnal years, and pontificates. The notes and bibliography are extensive. For the student, one of the most useful features of this work will be the detailed appendices. The text is also abundantly illustrated with black and white figures, though these are not always as clear as they could be due to the small format of the book.

Dodson's analysis will undoubtedly draw responses from other quarters, as is to be expected in a field that is so actively debated. His position on chronological revisionism (rejecting at the same time the orthodox chronology and the degree to which it has been revised by some) is central to the analysis offered, so a disagreement here would certainly affect the conclusions of the book. But even accounting for the potential difficulties of chronological re-readings, this work provides a clear and concise introduction to a period that has suffered from a lack of up-to-date and coherent scholarly publication (at least by comparison with other periods of Egyptian history), and offers an interesting and coherent presentation of the evidence.