Ancient Near Eastern History
Marc Van De Mieroop is a historian of the ancient Near East and Egypt from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon. Besides teaching at Columbia University, he has taught at the University of Oxford and at Yale University. He directs Columbia’s Center for the Ancient Mediterranean.
He has published numerous books and articles on various aspects of ancient Near Eastern history, Egyptian history, and World History with interests ranging from socio-economic and political history to intellectual history. He has also written extensively on historical methodology as it applies to his field of study. In these writings he aims both to present the materials of these fascinating ancient cultures to a broader audience and to explore new paths of research. Several of his books have been translated into multiple languages, including Philosophy before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia (2015), which was translated into Chinese and Turkish. His latest book, Before and After Babel: Writing as resistance in ancient Near Eastern Empires will soon appear with Oxford University Press. He has received various fellowships including from the Guggenheim Foundation, the ACLS, the NEH, and the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna. In 2018 he was the recipient of Columbia University’s Lenfest Teaching Award.