Includes newly commissioned case studies of the Neo-Assyrian, Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Roman, and Byzantine empires

This volume brings together experts in the history of the ancient Mediterranean and early China and presents a series of comparative case studies on clearly defined aspects of state formation in early eastern and western Eurasia, focusing on the process of initial developmental convergence.

The first systematic analysis of the process of initial convergence and subsequent divergence in Eurasian state formation.

Provides the first detailed, comprehensive reconstruction of Persian-Egyptian relations from the Persian conquest of Egypt through Alexander the Great's campaigns

"This book justly claims as a distinctive feature that it brings Greco-Roman empires together with Near Eastern ones in a comparative perspective.... Its parts are varied and interesting, the unexceeded sum makes an absorbing volume." -Bryn Mawr Classical Review