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1 - Nationality and Ethnicity in the Ancient Near East

from Part i - The Politics of Ethnicity, Nationhood, and Belonging in the Settings of Classical Civilizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2023

By
Steven Grosby
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

Ascertaining whether or not nations existed in the ancient Near East is not merely for the sake of determining historically when these territorial relations of social kinship appear.1 If the evidence, however complicated, suggests the existence of nations in the ancient Near East, a more accurate understanding of not only antiquity but also “modern times” should emerge, as the classification of the self and others on the basis of birth and residence in a territory would not have originated with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, and certainly would not be novel to the so-called “Age of Nationalism” of the nineteenth century.

Keywords

bordercity-stateempireethnicitykinshipmonolatrynationreligionterritory
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 11 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Boardman, John, Edwards, I. E. S., Sollberger, E., and Hammond, N. G. L. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vols. i–iii (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970–1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gat, Azar, Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Grosby, Steven, Biblical Ideas of Nationality: Ancient and Modern (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002).Google Scholar
Machinist, Peter, “Assyrians on Assyria in the First Millennium bc,” in Raaflaub, Kurt (ed.), Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike: Die nahöstlichen Kulturen und die Griechen (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1993), 77–104.Google Scholar
Parpola, Sami, “National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times,” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, 18/2 (2004), 5–22.Google Scholar
Sasson, Jack (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York: Scribner, 1995).Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D., The Antiquity of Nations (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Snell, Daniel (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Near East, 2nd edition (Malden, MA: Wiley, 2019).Google Scholar

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