This book examines the pasts and presents of some of the world’s most persecuted peoples, in search of answers to the question of why minorities living in Asia’s Highlands, with ancient roots in their homelands, have been continually oppressed by both historical and modern governments.The role of religious beliefs and practices is crucial to their story of isolation, tenacity, and resistance in the mountains of Asia. The Rohingya, Uyghurs, Hazara, Yazidis, Armenians, and Samaritans...

In recent years, postcolonial theories have emerged as one of the significant paradigms of contemporary academia, affecting disciplines throughout the humanities and social sciences. These theories address the complex processes if colonialism on culture and society-with repect to both the colonizers and the colonized-to help us understand the colonial experience in its entirety. The contributors to Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique present critical syntheses of archaeologi...

Near Eastern archaeology is generally represented as a succession of empires with little attention paid to the individuals, labelled as terrorists at the time, that brought them down. Their stories, when viewed against the backdrop of current violent extremism in the Middle East, can provide a unique long-term perspective.Extremism, Ancient and Modern brings long-forgotten pasts to bear on the narratives of radical groups today, recognizing the historical bases and specific cultura...