Rediscovering the Levant: A Heterogeneous Structure as a Homogeneous Historical Region

Abstract

The Levant exhibits the geographical, social, cultural, linguistic, religious and political patterns and structures of many civilisations. Highly diverse ways of life produced a broad array of possible social identities. Typical of the cities of the Levant was a mixed population. ‘Levantine’ was an omnibus term used especially to refer to the Armenian, Greek, Italian and Jewish merchants. These cities played an outstanding role in both forms of contact and mutual influence and offer themselves as counter-models to the nation-states that emerged in the nineteenth century. The Levant may serve as a paradigm for potential new historical regions, which do not proceed from current political premises with their attendant virtual maps and the accompanying stereotypes and images of friends and foes. Borderless as it is, it practically cries out for comparative historical analysis. The connecting elements were lively communication, trade and seafaring. Conversions of individuals from one cultural environment to the next and back again were everyday occurrences. A new light is shed on minorities here. Neither marginalised nor treated as objects of tolerance or intolerance, in a social system based on communication and flexibility, they were the system's pillars and driving force.