In the area of Akkadian literature, he is author of Before the Muses (1993, 1996, 2005), an anthology of annotated translations from Akkadian poetry and prose of all periods. An abridged, paperback version of this work appeared as From Distant Days (1995). He translated the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh for the Norton Critical Editions series, The Epic of Gilgamesh (2001), and is author of Akkadian Literature of the Late Period (2007), as well twenty-five or more studies on various aspects of Akkadian literature. In the area of history, especially social and economic history, he is author of two books, Umma in the Sargonic Period (1982) and Administration and Use of Institutional Land in Sargonic Sumer (1982), as well as about fifty articles, most of them dealing with the third millennium BCE. He is also active in the publication of primary source material, including one book, Sargonic Tablets from Telloh in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (1982), and about twenty articles of text publications. He is co-author, with Karen Foster and Patty Gerstenblith, of Iraq Beyond the Headlines: History, Archaeology, and War (2005), a history of Iraq from earliest times to the present, and, with Karen Foster, of Civilizations of Ancient Iraq (2009, Spanish translation 2011), an award-winning history of Iraq from earliest times to the Muslim conquest.