REGIONS: THE DETAILS

Please read the basics of this database before using it, and please read the details before writing me asking me to update it. But please do notify me of anything you're sure I should update.

This document, of course, is the details.

First of all, some policy matters. At this time, this database reflects its origins, in that its cutoff dates are (shortly before) the first textual documentation of a given region, and AD 700; these are also the cutoff dates of Usenet newsgroup soc.history.ancient, since I am one of that group's founders, and this database originated as an FAQ for the group. I am considering extending this database to AD 1000, which would match the chronological boundaries of These Survive, but have not yet decided whether to do so. I will certainly not extend the database any further than that in time.

I can read English well, and French, German, and Spanish badly. My command of other Romance and Germanic languages is still worse, and I cannot pretend to evaluate books in any languages outside those families at all. Therefore, wherever possible, I have preferred in this database to list works in languages I can read. Where I have an attestation in a language I can read, to the effect that the best reference starting point for a given region is in a language I cannot read, and I also know that much or most scholarship on that region is in the same language, I will list it under the "reference" category. For obvious reasons, I will not list a work I can't read under the "introductory" category. I am quite aware that as regards "reference" works, this policy has substantial flaws, but I can't see a better alternative that does not involve making this database a collaborative effort, with all the dangers of incompleteness and inconsistency collaborative efforts almost invariably entail.

EXTENT

The first step, of course, in talking about regions is to define the region you're talking about. My definitions of regions for this database were based on several considerations. The most important of these were:

Apparent reasonableness. Where a region had a clearly distinct history, I wanted to segregate it.
Matching the structure of scholarship. Since much of the purpose of the database is to guide people to scholarship, I usually wanted regions that actually are studied as a whole, although in some cases I refused to follow the actual path of scholarship.
Offensiveness. It was quite obvious that I could not please everyone who has some axe to grind as to how ancient history must be understood. I therefore went out of my way to offend everyone who has some axe to grind as to how ancient history must be understood. I took the prevalence of controversy on Usenet as my usual guide to how much axe-grinding would be going on. While some of my efforts certainly failed - I'm sure uniting Wales and England is not enough of a blow to Celtic pride to outweigh uniting the island of Ireland and also splitting Scotland from England - I'm fairly proud of others - such as the fact that Greece and Turkey are, in my scheme, divided into an equal number of regions, and one of these includes parts of both countries.

In general, then, you are unlikely to persuade me to change my regionalisation at all, at least with regard to regions whose entries in the database are already written, but you are especially unlikely to persuade me to change it on the grounds that it is offensive; that's the goal.

SOURCES

As I worked on the first few segments of this document, I found that I usually formed strong opinions on the quality of the historiography of a region as I worked on it, and that I usually acquired useful information about that historiography too. This section, under the guise of transmitting the latter, allows me to express the former. In addition, for some regions there are useful bibliographic resources which would not normally qualify for mention as "introductory" or "reference" treatments of the history, but which certainly needed to be mentioned. (Surprisingly often, the standard works on history do not mention these bibliographic resources.) Finally, I wanted to link each entry in the database to relevant records in the related languages and literatures database.

This section, therefore, is structured as follows. There is always an introductory paragraph summarising the primary sources by type and language, with links to language pages. There then follows reference to any major work collecting or providing bibliographic guidance to those sources. Next, there is a paragraph summarising the character of modern scholarship, and which languages it's done in; and finally, reference to any major work of bibliography on the modern scholarship of the region's ancient history, which is not part of a larger history referred to in the following sections or a larger bibliography referred to in supra-regional entries.

PERIODISATION AND TERMS

This section is meant to provide the bare minimum of information required for a person to begin finding out more about the topic. It is detailed in proportion as introductory resources on the topic, online or off, are unavailable. I've found it very difficult to resist the temptation to let this section grow out of all control (in the process torpedoing the whole project), so it is usually intentionally terse.

One important requirement of this section, however, is that it mention all polities which ever governed part of the region and which have entries in the related polity database, in order to link to that database. Since it is my opinion that names and dates are usually the best starting point anyway for the study of history, I'm not much fazed by this.

Archæological terms can multiply like mad. Since archæology is not my principal focus here, for all its importance, I've tried to restrain myself severely on this matter too. The same holds for important people, even writers. Please understand that my own original research, such as it has been, is in archæology and in literary history, not in political history; the disciplines I'm disregarding include my own favourites. I'm just doing what I can with finite time and space available.

INTRODUCTORY

There are a number of criteria for a work to be listed here. Wherever possible, I list only one work here per region per period, and preferably, only one work overall. My criteria:

It must be readable by the intelligent layman, and
it should be readable by someone without prior background in ancient history.
It should be in English, and
it must be short. (Note that works are listed which disguise a short text with large type, copious illustrations, etc. Good coffee table books are in fact ideal, where they exist.)
It must cover the basic known history without many mistakes or excessive speculation, and
it should be favourably reviewed or cited in some respectable source.
Finally, it should integrate archæology appropriately.

Where I don't want to list an item (because it fails one or more "should"), or where in particular I have seen no reviews (which includes favourable citations), that fact is noted. I also note the rare works that meet all my concerns with flying colours. Finally, where I am aware of a work but have not been able to find a copy, I will sometimes list it with a note to that effect.

If you want to suggest a book to me, please include all of the bibliographic information I normally list - title, author(s), series title and editor, place of publication, publisher, and date. You need not include ISBN; I have given up any hope of keeping ISBNs in this database. Unless the book is widely available in the midwestern United States (where my main libraries are those of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Madison, and of Northwestern University, all of whose catalogues are online) please also provide whatever information you can about what the book covers (especially period and region) and how many pages it spends covering it.

RESEARCH

There are a number of criteria for a work to be listed here. Wherever possible, I list only one work here per region per period, on the premise that the primary purpose of listing works here is to provide the most recent bibliographic coverage possible, which purpose is often served by listing the latest book which then points the reader at the standard works. My criteria:

It must provide bibliographic guidance to the region for its period, and
that guidance should take the form of an annotated bibliography (preferably an evaluative one) or a bibliographic essay, and
that guidance must be relatively recent, with respect to the pace of research on the region and period in question.
It must cover the known history in fair detail, and
it should be favourably reviewed or cited in some respectable source.
Finally, it must not demonstrate the incompetence or outdatedness often found in historians' use of archæology (and vice versa), as best I can tell given my superficial examinations of these books.

Created August 23, 1999, and not in need of regular updates. Note that each page in the database will have, below a horizontal line like this one, a similar note on dates of creation and update, on who (if anyone) reviewed and criticised the document, and giving the URL in text form.

Not reviewed.

URL: <http://turing.postilion.org/these-survive/regions/details.html>

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