Exceptionally detailed in its analysis, Ethnic Relations in the Ancient Mediterranean is an exciting, comprehensive, and well-researched book that will make a significant impact on the study of ethnicity in Mediterranean antiquity. This work is unique in its chronological and geographical sweep, considering dynamics of identity discourse from Herodotos to the early imperial period, which allows us to see ancient ethnic discourses from a variety of different perspectives and angles. Harland also pays careful attention to the imperial, colonial, and geopolitical contexts that shaped discourses of ethnicity, looking at subject peoples within colonial contexts or dotting the margins of imperial control.”

Cavan Concannon, University of Southern California

“Harland has written a remarkable book about ethnic interactions and ethnographic perceptions in the ancient Mediterranean. While decentering the gazes of Greek and Roman elite authors and the colonial traditions that prioritize them, it embeds the production of ethnic categories in the social encounters of people of differing statuses that have long evaded our attention. By complicating the simple dichotomies on which so much classical scholarship is based, it also enables us to envision the cognitive hierarchies in which ancient peoples situated themselves and others. Above all, it places many different peoples, including Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Lycians, Thracians, Judeans/Jews, and Christians, in conversations with one another at the local level. The result is an essential work that uniquely captures how they fostered friendly and unfriendly rivalries, crafted cultural exchanges, and emulated one another in ways that move beyond blanket narratives of nationalism, domination, or resistance.”

Nathanael Andrade, Binghamton University (SUNY)