Almost 4,000 years ago, a young king named Hammurabi inherited the small and relatively unimportant city of Babylon in that region of Mesopotamia that is today Iraq. Hammurabi expanded Babylon in size and influence, making the city the most important in the region by the time of his death. It would remain important for more than 1,000 years. Although Hammurabi was a politician, a diplomat, and a warrior, he is remembered mostly for his code of law, inscribed on a tall monument of stone. These hundreds of legal rulings influenced the future laws of the region and also those of the Western world. Hammurabi explores the life and times of a ruler known as "The King of Justice" through the king's own words and through the words of legal and historical documents and literature of his time. Book jacket.