MARC VAN DE MIEROOP is Professor of History at Columbia University and Director of Columbia's Center for the Ancient Mediterranean. Previously, he taught at Yale University and the University of Oxford. He is Founding Editor of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History and the author of numerous books on the histories of the ancient Near East and Egypt, including A History of Ancient Egypt, King Hammurabi of Babylon, and The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II.