sehepunkte 23 (2023), Nr. 6

Milinda Hoo: Eurasian Localisms

Milinda Hoo has written an extremely well-researched treatise on Hellenism in the last three centuries BCE in Central Asia and to a lesser extent Western Asia. Stemming from her doctoral dissertation at Kiel University, the book is arranged in ten chapters divided into three sections.

Part I, "Contexts of Hellenism," is composed of two chapters. The first, the Introduction, in which "inbetweeness" as a cultural term for double-marginality is explained as "a neutral denominator for unclassifiable remainders that fall in between perceived opposites" (19). Hoo attempts to distinguish the local or the "in" from the global or the "between." She draws on this definition to criticize other terms, like "crossroads," used in descriptions of Hellenistic Central Asia.

A historiographical analysis rounds out the chapter with an illustration of how modern archaeology has shaped our understanding of the Hellenistic Far East, emphasizing its place in Classics and Indology. The discussion concludes with a brief elucidation on a translocal, comparativist approach that belies her methodology.

The second chapter situates the study of Hellenism broadly within the last two centuries. Hoo demonstrates how Hellenization went from being applied as an equivalent term as a by-product of colonialism into one whose meaning is now distinct in a postcolonial context. She draws on the latter to open the discussion to a variety of usages, including hybridity and hybridization, networks, globalization, and global perspectives.

Part II, "Cases of Hellenism," presents five cities as case studies in chapters 3-7. Each contains four sections: a concise historiography of the site that acts as the introduction, an overview of the site's archaeological remains, a short summary, and a conclusion coupling the term Hellenism with a specific modifier. The latter forms the basis of chapters 8-9 by placing each site within the context of inbetweeness. The first three studies are situated in Central Asia, the last two in Western Asia.

In chapter 3, Hoo draws on Ai Khanoum to investigate Hellenism and Greek identity to understand how "implications of hybridity [...] converge into considerations of the preservation of Greek ethnic identity of the inhabitants of the city" (101). She concludes that Ai Khanoum represents Hellenistic Baktria writ large - north and south of the Oxos River (Amu Darya), standing as a monument of colonial Hellenization and Greek identity that can be comprehended culturally and ethnically.

Whereas Ai Khanoum is regarded as a Greek polis and a locus of Hellenism, in chapter 4, her attention turns to the so-called Oxos Temple at Takht-i Sangin, which she regards as a place of worship by local Greek and Iranian adherents who were probably bilingual. This leads Hoo to take up the sticky issue of Hellenism and religion. The problem centers on how to interpret the sanctuary and the impressive cultural remains of more than 8,000 objects. She settles on perceiving the temple as a "cultural melting pot [...] with an emphasis on the symbiotic coexistence of multiple influences and peoples" (126). The analysis of the Oxos Temple leads her to conclude that it was global in nature as opposed to the city of Ai Khanoum particularly the intermural temple that she deems was more locally oriented.

The last chapter on Central Asia concerns the Parthian site of Old Nisa with the purpose of disentangling the theoretical contexts that have framed the discussion of how Hellenism and Philhellenism have been studied. She understands the former as the practice of Greek paideia by the Arsakid elites in the royal court and the cultural manifestations that resulted, while coexisting "with other cultural forms of royal expression and communication such as Persianism[...]" (148). This is unlike the latter term in which it has thus far proven difficult to determine whether Arsakid rulers had acculturated to Greek culture or did so from pragmatic incentives. The issue revolves around whether Philhellenism as an Arsakid expression should be viewed as one of cultural originality as opposed to cultural dependency.

The next two chapters proceed from Central Asia to Western Asia and consider two cities in Mesopotamia. Hoo begins by assessing how Hellenism has been recognized in scholarship in Seleukeia on the Tigris, which brings her to focus on the problem of Hellenism and hybridity. She takes up the issue of deciding whether the city should be understood as Greek or Babylonian, or put another way, whether the city should be elucidated and intellectualized along the lines of Greekness and non-Greekness. A clue about ideas of cultural hybridity is to be found in small terracotta figurines.

Scholarly assessments of Hellenism are continued in the next chapter on Hellenistic Babylon where she takes up the conundrum of Hellenism and localism. The fate of the city was closely bound to the foundation of Seleukeia on the Tigris. Their cultural identities form a natural comparison and contrast with scholarship treating the former as an example of a city with an Occidental nature and the latter with an Oriental one. Seleukeia has likewise tended to be regarded as the primary cause for the downfall of Babylon. Unlike its newer counterpart that was steeped in Greek or Hellenistic culture, Babylon remained Babylonian and only allowed a limited and an inconsequential amount of Greek elements.

The last three chapters form Part III: "Eurasian Localisms." In chapter 8: "Paradoxes of Hellenism," the analysis is primarily comparative, designed to illuminate scholarly perceptions of Hellenism of the previous five case studies. To flush out the nuances of Hellenistic culture, the discussion centers on deciding what similarities these cities have in common and on what they differ. The resolution consists of six factors: a comparison of Baktria, Parthia and Babylonia; Hellenism and ethnicity; religion; Philhellenism; cultural hybridity; and localism.

Building on the idea of Hellenism, the next chapter, "Towards a translocal approach," assesses cultural inbetweeness as a manifestation of localism and non-localism by drawing on ideas derived from globalization studies in order to avoid dichotomous interpretations. She begins with an overview of globalization as a theoretical construct, which comprises six categories ranging from its use in Classics to providing a definition, followed by a complex series of concepts: connectivity, time-space compression, deterritorialization and glocalization. This leads to the second part of the chapter, a methodological exercise of globalization to elucidate "a translocal approach to Hellenism and inbetweeness" (229). This entails a reconsideration of each of the five cities under review by reexamining them through the lens of globalism to achieve a translocal methodological analysis. The work ends with a brief conclusion in which she argues that this approach will add new directions to Hellenistic and wider cultural studies.

This book contains a great deal of valuable material. The structure of this complex topic is presented in an approachable manner. The puzzle that Hoo has worked out is how Hellenism can be thought of as an expression of localism and non-localism. Both can illustrate a "globalized" context, while expressing local cultural forms that restrain changes produced by globalization. In each scenario there is a dynamic within culture that innovates and restricts. It is an articulation of how people make sense of the world and their place within it. Hellenism in the Hellenistic period was affected by contact with other cultures, by allowing people to remake and envision themselves anew, or they could remain steadfast and resist this change.

Hoo writes in an accessible style, identifying critical ideas and issues. The book will complement and challenge undergraduates and graduates alike, while also serving as an invaluable source of ideas for researchers and academics.