Ancient Egypt and the Near East in World History

Abstract

Ancient Egypt and the Near East are central to many histories that aim to look at the world in its entirety, mostly because they are the earliest cultures that are well-documented both with textual and material evidence. This article surveys how these studies use that evidence in the various ways the discipline of world or global history is practiced. Those include chronological narratives of human activities from prehistory up to today, investigations that consider the worlds in which the peoples of ancient Egypt and the Near East lived, and comparative studies that seek to explain how certain features of human society and culture came about. The final question it addresses is whether the people of ancient Egypt and the Near East had any interest in a global history themselves.