What is the Ancient Near East?
Prehistoric developments.
City-States. Origins: the Uruk Phenomenon
The development of writing and administration
Competing City-States: the Early Dynastic Period
The written sources and their historical uses
Political developments in Southern Mesopotamia
Political Centralization in the Late Third Millennium
The Near East in the Early Second Millennium
Nomads and sedentary people
The Growth of Territorial States in the Early Second Millennium
Shamshi-Adad and the kingdom of upper Mesopotamia
Territorial States. The Club of the Great Powers
Political interactions: diplomacy and trade
Regional competition: warfare
Shared ideologies and social organizations.
The Western States of the Late Second Millennium. Mittani
Kassites, Assyrians, and Elamites
The middle Elamite kingdom.
The Collapse of the Regional System and its Aftermath
Empires. The Near East at the Start of the First Millennium
Patterns of Assyrian imperialism
Internal Assyrian decline.
Assyria's World Domination
The creation of an imperial structure
The defeat of the great rivals
The administration and ideology of the empire
The Medes and Babylonians
The Medes and the Anatolian states
The Neo-Babylonian dynasty.
The rise of Persia and its expansion
Organization of the empire
