Stordalen/Levantine, 1. The Region of the Levant and the Importance of the Local Perspective

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.