State formation and state decline in the Near and Middle East / edited by Rainer Kessler, Walter Sommerfeld and Leslie Tramontini.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Introduction -- 2. The Evolution of Fragility: The Resistible Rise and Irresistible Fall of Early States -- 3. Umweltzerstörung und Ökologische Krisen im Alten Orient -- 4. Material Foundation of Early States -- 5. The Formation and Decline of the Aramaean States in Iron Age Syria -- 6. Conditions of State Formation at the Edges of Empires: the Case of Iron Age Moab -- 7. Ethnicity and State Formation in the Levant during the Earlt Iron Age -- 8. The Role of Lingua Francas and Communication Networks in the Process of Empire-Building: The Persian Empire -- 9. Political Elites in Ancient Judah: Continuity and Change -- 10. The Firs Arabic Empire and Modern Scholarship, 622-661 -- 11. Cooperation over Trans-Boundery Water Resources Management in the Middle East -- 12. Still in the Wilderness? Iraq in 2015 -- 13. Short Bios of Authors.

At present, numerous Middle Eastern states experience turmoil, uprisings, and crises. Chaos, civil war, and vain negotiations seem to indicate the beginning of massive state decline and the end of the Middle East as we have known it. Discussing state formation and state decline in a historical perspective renders important insights into the region’s inner mechanisms: The Near and Middle East is one of the regions in which the earliest state formations of humanity took place; its 5,000 years of history provide many examples of the formation, the continuity, and the decline of states. History carries its consequences into the present, and current zones of conflict cannot be understood without an in-depth understanding of its historical roots.