Paul J. Kosmin konzentriert sich auf die antike Geschichte, insbesondere auf die hellenistische und römische Zeit. Seine Arbeit untersucht die politischen, sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Strukturen dieser Epochen und betont die Verbindungen zwischen der griechischen und der östlichen Welt. Kosmins Ansatz zeichnet sich durch sorgfältige Untersuchung verfügbarer Quellen und den Versuch aus, komplexe historische Phänomene zu rekonstruieren.
Under Seleucid rule, time no longer restarted with each new monarch. Instead, progressively numbered years, identical to the system we use today, became the measure of historical duration. Paul Kosmin shows how this invention of a new kind of time-and resistance to it-transformed the way we... číst celé
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year The Seleucid Empire (311-64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan—the bulk of Alexander the Great's Asian conquests—the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space. “This engaging book appeals to the specialist and non-specialist alike. Kosmin has successfully brought together a number of disparate fields in a new and creative way that will cause a reevaluation of how the Seleucids have traditionally been studied.” —Jeffrey D. Lerner, American Historical Review “It is a useful and bright introduction to Seleucid ideology, history, and position in the ancient world.” —Jan P. Stronk, American Journal of Archaeology