THE MESOPOTAMIAN TALE, compact companion to EVOLUTION DIVERTED, contains the story at the heart of that book. The story, woven from texts and images unearthed from the ruins of ancient Mesopotamian cities (in present day Iraq), covers the age that began with events leading to the extraordinary birth of our kind...the age that ended as the religion of the olden gods began to fade away. THE MESOPOTAMIAN TALE disputes the conventional view that the Mesopotamian literature is all myth. It takes the stories of the gods at face value...accepting that the rulers of the region were powerful flesh and blood humanoids who'd come to Earth, not deities existing solely in human imagination. That, of course, was the nature of the mythical Greek and Roman gods, many of whom were modeled on the living gods of Mesopotamia, after they had left Earth. The accounts assembled in this work were found in fragmentary form in tens of thousands of artifacts. Piecing together texts separated from each other by time, distance, and language, and translated by numerous scholars, was a process based in an intuitive feel for a vital narrative running, like a red thread, through them all. Admittedly, the process involved as much art as science. This author hopes that in time scholars and scientists will confirm that THE MESOPOTAMIAN TALE has been accurately and truthfully abstracted from the vast archaeological findings. In EVOLUTION DIVERTED, the saga of the Mesopotamian deities is explored at length, citing source material and relevant science. In contrast, this book's commentary is brief, aiming primarily to show how the story has the potential to lay bare the roots of humanity's suffering, for in the long rule of the olden gods we can discern the origins of the deeply troubled state of civilization. A principle shared by wisdom traditions, philosophers, and clinicians holds that you cannot solve your problems if you don't know who you are…and that you can't know who you are if you don't know your origins. As it is for one person, so it is for our kinds. If memory for our extraordinary beginnings is restored, revelations about our selves will lead us in new directions. EVOLUTION DIVERTED envisions a way out of civilized humanity's trap. Yet this book doesn't try to bolster the credibility of the narrative it presents. It doesn't try to elaborate how our troubled state would be relieved if we were to emerge from mass amnesia. Those tasks are taken up in EVOLUTION DIVERTED. This book's intention is less ambitious. Its commentaries are directed at two critical points in time: when monotheism began to rise; and the present, when we are making choices that will determine the fate of our species and our world.