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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Terje Stordalen is professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. He also holds a chair as Obel Visiting Social Science professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.
Øystein S. LaBianca [+]
Andrews University
Øystein S. LaBianca is research professor of anthropology in the Department of Behavioural Sciences and associate director of the Institute of Archaeology, Andrews University, Michigan, USA.
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.