What is Ancient History?

The author is professor in the humanities and professor of classics and history at Stanford. Here he presents a radical case for reframing ancient history as a global history, marking a decisive world-making phase in human development and providing a shared foundation for our world. He argues that since the 18th century ‘western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world driven not only by the quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealisation of Greece and Rome.’ Moreover, ancient history is neither irrelevant nor obsolete, but should rather be seen as ‘a foundational phase of human development in which the earliest versions of our current lifeways were created, consolidated, and locked in’ (p. 6) – along with corresponding developments in infrastructure and the beginnings of industry. We need to understand ancient history as a global process and dispense with the traditional classics format. Instead, we can use the term foundational history; the author concludes by mapping out how this recontextualization might take place towards a perspective incorporating the global universality of antiquity.