BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY: GLOBAL HISTORY

At present, Global, Entangled and Transcultural History are commonly used key words in modern history, and also ancient history has partly taken over these ideas and concepts. The Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations (IHAC)was from its beginnings in 1984 devoted to incorporate, and link, all ancient(Western) civilizations under a historical study perspective, an innovative and still up to date idea of its founder Prof. Lin Zhichun. Under his present director Prof.Dr. Zhang Qiang, IHAC has started a new, national-funded project to research the communication and integration of the different ancient civilizations in specific contact zones. A first step will be a workshop of the Melammu-project with the title “At the Edges of Empires: Territories and Processes nearby and between Developing Great Powers in Antiquity,” held from August 30 to September 3,2018 at IHAC. Further workshops and conferences will follow. Thus, we very much welcome the following contribution of Raimund Schulz and Uwe Walter,both full professors of ancient history at the University of Bielefeld (Germany).With their survey of recent literature on the topic, they show the chances and challenges of conducting research under this perspective, and offer us, and hopefully our readers, a guide to successfully approach the field. Additionally,our assistant editor Dr. Xueliang Shi reviews a recently appeared book on the Silk Road(s), which takes Western and Eastern findings, and perspectives, into account.