Your Complaints About Globalization Are Old News

The Ancient World Also Wrestled with Trade, Aggrandizing Elites, Destabilizing Religious Conflict, and Even Syrian Migrants

Syrian migrants were being rebuffed by their richer neighbors. Walls were being raised to keep out barbarian hordes. Old empires, having closed themselves off to trade, were in decline. Revolutionary religions and philosophies were being exported overseas, stirring up violent conflicts but also forging connections among far-flung peoples.

These were all challenges of the ancient world—times and places far removed from the 21st-century United States. But on a cool summer evening before a packed audience at the outdoor amphitheater of the Getty Villa, three scholars found some surprising parallels between that …

Reflecting Splendor and Conflict in Enduring Visions of an Ancient City

A Getty Online Exhibition Unearths the Complex Legacy of Syria’s Palmyra

All places contain history; traces of the past that can be read, contextualized, interpreted, and, with some effort, crafted into knowledge. Some places are so rich in material and textual …

For the Ancient Greeks, Immigrants Were Both a Boon and Threat to Homeland Security

Athenians Welcomed Strangers as Workers and Mythic Protectors, but Walled off Dangerous “Barbarians”

Even though the United States is worlds away from ancient Greece, we still sometimes use the Greeks’ vocabulary for describing immigrants and our fear of them. Like the ancient Greeks, …