For more than twenty years I have wanted to write this book. That's how long I have been teaching the material covered here as an introductory-level course to undergraduate students. Over the years, repeated proposals that I submitted to various presses were rejected on the grounds that there was not enough demand to make such a textbook profitable. Therefore, I am grateful to Beatrice Rehl at Cambridge University Press for offering me a contract. I also thank Mary Robinson-Mohr and Jason Staples for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
I got the time I needed to write this book thanks to a Chapman Family Faculty Fellowship at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The research fund awarded with the fellowship paid for the reproduction rights and preparation of many of the images. My work on the book was enriched by weekly meetings with the other Fellows at the IAH during the fall of 2010. I also wish to thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Religious Studies and Dean William Andrews at UNC-Chapel Hill for their support, including granting me a leave of absence for the 2010—2011 academic year.
I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who generously granted reproduction permission or provided the images that are a key component of this book, including Todd Bolen (BiblePlaces. com), Felicity Cobbings (Palestine Exploration Fund), Gwyn Davies, Hillel Geva (Israel Exploration Society), Gabi Laron (Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology), Leen Ritmeyer, Ronny Reich, Zev Radovan, Hershel Shanks (Biblical Archaeology Society), Zeev Weiss, and Jane Cahill West. I owe special thanks to Jeffrey Becker and Richard Talbert at the Ancient World Mapping Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, who prepared an original series of maps for this book.
This book is informed by decades of learning from teachers, students, colleagues, friends, and family. Although it is impossible to acknowledge them all, I wish to remember some of those who are no longer with us: James A. Sauer and Keith de Vries, who were my teachers and dissertation advisers at the University of Pennsylvania; my close friend and colleague Hanan Eshel; and my dear friends Tsvi (Harvey) Schneider and Ora Sinai. They had a lasting impact on my life and are deeply missed.
I am fortunate to have a loving and supportive family, including my parents, Herbert and Marlene Magness; my husband, Jim Haberman; and my nephew Mike Miller. This book is dedicated to Jim, for whose unconditional love and companionship I am grateful. Jim works as the photographer on my excavations, and he gets the credit for preparing many of the illustrations in this book as well.
World History
