Owen Rees is the author of the new book The Far Edges of the Known World: Life Beyond the Borders of Ancient Civilization. He is a lecturer at Birmingham Newman University, and he lives in Manchester, UK.
Q: What inspired you to write The Far Edges of the Known World, and how did you choose the places on which to focus?
A: I suppose the real inspiration for the book was my own frustration at how the ancient world is depicted and talked about. When people think of ancient history they will think of Greece and Rome – and maybe ancient Egypt as well (the pyramids are iconic after all). But this is a very narrow perspective on the ancient world.
What’s more, when we read about Greece and Rome, we are often focusing on specific cities – Rome, Athens, or Alexandria, places like that – which narrows the perspectives further still. The 13 sites I chose move us from prehistory in east Africa, through the Greek and Roman worlds, and beyond, covering over 5,000 years over three continents.
So, I wanted to write a book that flipped the usual stories and narratives on their head. To paraphrase the Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson, I wanted to make the unfamiliar seem familiar, while also making the familiar seem unfamiliar.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: The book was mostly researched during pandemic-related lockdowns, which scuppered a few plans. I had envisaged myself as something of a jet-setting historian when I planned out this book, but that never happened.
Luckily for me, the world is filled with generous scholars, so this book relied on the kindness of strangers, the many historians and archaeologists around the world who were willing to share their research with me and field my oddly specific questions along the way.
In terms of surprises, there were quite a few: a community of Buddhists appearing in ancient Alexandria; evidence of a trade network that linked ancient Britain to ancient Indonesia (via Canaan) in the 2nd millennium BCE; nomads in Ukraine who did not travel; Greeks worshipping Indian gods. The book is filled with surprises.
Q: The writer Jane Draycott said of the book, “A breath of fresh air, presenting a perspective on cultural history that is breathtaking in its scope.” What do you think of that description?
A: Honoured. Jane is an amazing historian and author – one I have admired for many years – so to see her describe the book in those terms means a lot.
It also captures the ambition of the book, an ambition I know that Jane and I both share: to breathe new life into a well-trodden subject. So, I am just pleased to see that this approach comes across to the reader as well.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: The main thing I want people to take away is that there is still so much to learn about the ancient world! I chose 13 sites to anchor the reader in an ancient world they may recognise, but I could just have easily picked 13 different ones. The ancient world has a large and vibrant place.
History has a nasty habit of trying to enforce structure on the chaos that is the human story, through narratives and story arcs – biographies of “great men,” rise and fall of empires, collapse and revolution to explain change, that sort of thing. But for these narratives to work, we have to exclude so many other experiences of the world.
So, if readers take one thing away from this book, I hope it is a spark of curiosity about what other histories are out there waiting to be read or heard.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am currently working on another trade book that is very different in scope. I cannot talk too much about it, but it will offer a very different perspective on a very well-known ancient Greek city.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Ancient history has long been something of a tool for extreme ideologies, so it is important to know when the ancient world is being manipulated by public figures. Pseudohistory and pseudoarcheology are rampant online, and with the spread of “generative AI” this is only getting worse.
To try and combat this, in some small way, I run a history website, BadAncient.com, which brings together experts from around the world to fact-check common claims about the ancient world.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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