Revolt And Resistance In The Ancient Classical World And The Near East

This book contains state of the field discussion about the nature of revolt and resistance in the ancient world. While it doesn’t cover the entire ancient world, it does focus in on the key revolts of the pre-Roman imperial world.

This collaborative volume examines revolts and resistance to the successor states, formed after Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, as a transregional phenomenon. The editors have assembled an array of specialists in the study of the various regions and cultures of the Hellenistic world - Judea, Egypt, Babylonia, Central Asia, and Asia Minor - in an effort to trace comparisons and connections between episodes and modes of resistance. The volume seeks to unite the currently dominant social-scientific orientation to ancient resistance and revolt with perspectives, often coming from religious studies, that are more attentive to local cultural, religious, and moral frameworks. In re-assessing these frameworks, contributors move beyond Greek/non-Greek binaries to examine resistance as complex and entangled: acts and articulations of resistance are not purely nativistic or 'nationalist', but conditioned by local traditions of government, historical memories of prior periods, as well as emergent transregional Hellenistic political and cultural idioms. Cultures of Resistance in the Hellenistic East is organized into three parts. The first part investigates the Great Theban Revolt and the Maccabean Revolt, the central cases for large, organized, and prolonged military uprisings against the Hellenistic kingdoms. The second part examines the full gamut of indigenous self-assertion and resistant action, including theologies of monarchic inadequacy, patterns of historical periodization and textual interpretation, and claims to sites of authority. The volume's final part turns to the more ambiguous assertions of local autonomy and identity that emerge in the frontier regions that slipped in and out of the grasp of the great Hellenistic powers.

This book reveals how violent pasts were constructed by ancient Mediterranean societies, the ideologies they served, and the socio-political processes and institutions they facilitated. Combining case studies from Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, Israel/Judah, and Rome, it moves beyond essentialist dichotomies such as “victors” and “vanquished” to offer a new paradigm for studying representations of past violence across diverse media, from funerary texts to literary works, chronicles, monumental reliefs, and other material artefacts such as ruins. It thus paves the way for a new comparative approach to the study of collective violence in the ancient world.

"The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East offers a comprehensive and fully illustrated survey of the history of Egypt and Western Asia (Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Iran) in five volumes, from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander of Great. The authors represent a highly international mix of leading academics whose expertise brings alive the people, places and times of the remote past. The emphasis lies firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities under investigation. The individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, giving special attention to the most recent archaeological finds and how they have impacted our interpretation. The first volume covers the long period from the mid-tenth millennium to the late third millennium BC and presents the history of the Near East in ten chapters "From the Beginnings to Old Kingdom Egypt and the Dynasty of Akkad". Key topics include the domestication of animals and plants, the first permanent settlements, the subjugation and appropriation of the natural environment, the emergence of complex states and belief systems, the invention of the earliest writing systems and the wide-ranging trade networks that linked diverse population groups across deserts, mountains and oceans"--

Rewrites the military and political history of Greek military service in ancient Persia and Egypt.

First edition published by Oxford University, 2012.

This multidisciplinary study takes a fresh look at Judean history and biblical literature in the late fourth and third centuries BCE. In a major reappraisal of this era, the contributions to this volume depict it as one in which critical changes took place. Until recently, the period from Alexander’s conquest in 332 BCE to the early years of Seleucid domination following Antiochus III’s conquest in 198 BCE was reputed to be poorly documented in material evidence and textual production, buttressing the view that the era from late Persian to Hasmonean times was one of seamless continuity. Biblical scholars believed that no literary activity belonged to the Hellenistic age, and archaeologists were unable to refine their understanding because of a lack of secure chronological markers. However, recent studies are revealing this period as one of major social changes and intense literary activity. Historians have shed new light on the nature of the Hellenistic empires and the relationship between the central power and local entities in ancient imperial settings, and the redating of several biblical texts to the third century BCE challenges the traditional periodization of Judean history. Bringing together Hellenistic history, the archaeology of Judea, and biblical studies, this volume appraises the early Hellenistic period anew as a time of great transition and change and situates Judea within its broader regional and transregional imperial contexts.

Volume I offers an introductory survey of the phenomenon of genocide. The first five chapters examine its major recurring themes, while the further nineteen are specific case studies. The combination of thematic and empirical approaches illuminates the origins and long history of genocide, its causes, consistent characteristics, and the connections linking various cases from earliest times to the early modern era. The themes examined include the roles of racism, the state, religion, gender prejudice, famine, and climate crises, as well as the role of human decision-making in the causation of genocide. The case studies cover events on four continents, ranging from prehistoric Europe and the Andes to ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, the early Greek world, Rome, Carthage, and the Mediterranean. It continues with the Norman Conquest of England's North, the Crusades, the Mongol Conquests, medieval India and Viet Nam, and a panoramic study of pre-modern China, as well as the Spanish conquests of the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, and Mexico.