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Levantine Entanglements - Cultural Productions, Long-Term Changes and Globalizations in the Eastern Mediterranean - Terje Stordalen
1. The Region of the Levant and the Importance of the Local Perspective
Levantine Entanglements - Cultural Productions, Long-Term Changes and Globalizations in the Eastern Mediterranean - Terje Stordalen
Terje Stordalen [+ ]
University of Oslo
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Øystein S. LaBianca [+ ]
Andrews University
Description
This chapter introduces the rationale for studying global history from the context of specific localities and viewing the Levant in a longue durée perspective. The relevant lands are geographically defined and the editors offer a reflection on different conventions for naming these lands. Certain salient characteristics of the Levant are identified and elaborated, such as its perennial internal fragmentation, its geopoliticially strategic location as a corridor connecting cultural epicenters at three different continents, and the resultant constant exposure to successive world empires and trade networks.