Globalization and cheaper travel have led to a rapid increase in cross-cultural encounters worldwide, making understanding problems of conflict, prejudice, interaction and adaption more important than ever. Fortunately, the closely knit, yet very different, cultures that have inhabited and interacted in the Near East provide powerful historical examples with which to approach these problems. The contributors in this volume use both theoretical and empirical lenses to look at the interactions of nomads, traders, religious groups, armies and more, in order to address questions about cultural interaction and its ramifications. They illustrate these issues with cases drawn from a range of fields within the overall history of the Near East, including that of Mesopotamia, the rise of Islam and the effects of Hellenism.