Connectivity in Antiquity: Globalization as a Long-Term Historical Process

None of the authors of these papers could have predicted the startling events of September 11, 2001, and the long-term effects of those events on the relationship between the West and the Middle East, when the sessions upon which this book is based were originally conceived. Nevertheless, two concepts that have great immediacy and have now become the current watchwords for the media as well as for academia, globalization and long-term historical processes, are brought together here. The initial promise of modern communications, that of solidifying human bonds throughout the world, seems to have been replaced by the wide and rapid dissemination of destructive technology. Nevertheless, today's political minds still assure us that the more 'connected' societies are the less danger they pose to world peace. Is this, however, a 'new' idea or do those who have a sense of déjà vu about the 'connection = stability' equation have a valid point? The answers to this query are as varied as the disciplines that have been strongly influenced by Manuel Castells' theories contained in his massive work The Network Society-which has been the guiding force behind this volume.

ystein S. LaBianca is Professor of Anthropology and Senior Director, International Development Program, at Andrews University, Michigan. He is author or editor of numerous books including Sedentarization and Nomadization: Food System Cycles at Hesban and Vicinity in Transjordan (1990), Hesban 7: Hellenistic and Roman Strata (1992), and Faunal Remains: Taphonomical and Zooarchaeological Studies of the Animal Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity (1995). Sandra Arnold Scham is an archaeologist, the current Washington Correspondent for Archaeology magazine and the former editor of the journal Near Eastern Archaeology. In addition to teaching the archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the University of Maryland and Catholic University she has also taught at Jerusalem University College in Israel. Sandra has performed archaeological work in Israel, Jordan and Southeastern Turkey. For four years between 2001 and 2005, she was the co-director of an Israeli and Palestinian cooperative heritage project funded by the U.S. Department of State-the first such project ever undertaken. From 2008 to 2010 she has been serving as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow in which capacity she is advising the United States Agency for International Development on development strategies in the Middle East and Asia.