Archaeological studies of early civilizations in southwestern Asia concentrate on the evolution of urbanism and the state, and generally assume that cities were the foci of complex societies. However, some early civilizations may represent largely extinct forms of complex, but essentially rural, society. Archaeological concepts of urbanism and urbanization are reviewed and critiqued. Rural communities are defined as agriculturally self-sufficient, while cities have populations too large for independent agricultural subsistence. Ethnographic and historical data are used to propose size classifications for ancient "urban" and "rural" settlements in Mesopotamia and the southern Levant. Survey data show that Mesopotamia is characterized aptly as a "Heartland of Cities," in which urban centers restructured regional settlement systems. The southern Levant is reconsidered as a "Heartland of Villages," in which Bronze Age populations grew, and social complexity developed, primarily in the countryside with little urban influence. The nature of this "rural complexity" is illuminated by excavated data from Tell el-Hayyat and Tell Abu en-Niᶜaj in the Jordan Valley. Niᶜaj suggests the importance of sedentary rural agriculture during the otherwise "pastoralized" Early Bronze IV Period. Middle Bronze II temples at Hayyat, a diminutive village site, exemplify social institutions normally interpreted as "urban" in distinctly rural settings. Neutron activation analysis is used to investigate rural pottery manufacture and exchange in the Jordan Valley. A brief excursus proposes a means of distinguishing trace element signatures of clays from those of non-clay inclusions in archaeological ceramics. This revised method reveals that some villages specialized in fine ware production during the absence of towns in Early Bronze IV, and that fine ware production continued in villages despite the reappearance of towns in Middle Bronze II. Thus, economic and social differentiation had characteristically rural manifestations, and Bronze Age society in the southern Levant should be reconsidered as a distinct and provocative case of "rural complexity" in a "Heartland of Villages."

La riche contribution de la SC et des ONG palestinienne à travers son histoire, leurs contributions aux efforts en faveur de la construction de l'Etat et à la fourniture entre autres choses des services sociaux, et la recherche d'une solution autre que la solution à deux Etats qui s'effondre– ont présidé le choix du sujet de ma thèse : « La SC et la construction d'un Etat : Tendances passées, dilemmes actuels et défis futurs posés aux ONG ». En tant que concept théorique, la construction de l'Etat a connu un intérêt accru durant les dernières décennies avec le nombre croissant de sociétés touchées par des conflits. Cependant, le point focal de notre thèse n'est pas tant les théories abstraites de la construction de l'Etat que son histoire et ses aspects pratiques en conjonction et/ou à l'intersection de l'évolution de la SC et des ONG. La compréhension de la construction de l'Etat telle que promue par l'OCDE « Concepts et dilemmes de la construction de l'Etat dans des situations fragiles » imprègne et la rationalité et la méthodologie de notre recherche. / The richness of the contribution of CS and NGOs to Palestine on its history, their contribution to state-building efforts and the provision of social services among other things, and the search of an alternative solution to the flawed two-state solution to the conflict – governed the choice of the topic of my dissertation “CS & State-Building: Past Trends, Current Dilemmas and Future Challenges Faced by NGOs”.As a theoretical concept, state-building has gained prominence during the past decades with the growing number of conflict-affected societies. Yet, the focus of our dissertation was not so much on abstract theories of state-building as on its history and practicality in conjunction and/or in intersection with the evolution of CS & NGOs. The perspective on state-building as promoted by the OECD entitled “Concepts and Dilemmas of State-Building in Fragile Situations” impregnates both the rationale and the methodology of our research.

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Texte remanié de: Diss. Ph. D.--Geography--Jerusalem--Hebrew university of Jerusalem, 1992. / Mention parallèle de titre ou de responsabilité : "Go view the land" : German study of Palestine in the nineteenth century / Haim Goren. Table des matières trad. en anglais. Bibliogr. p. [305]-335. Index.

Dissertation--Katholisch-theologische Fakultät--Münster--Wilhelms-Universität, 1998. / Résumé en anglais. Bibliogr. p. 553-592.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Anne Marie Baylouny. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-109). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

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The topic of this paper is how CNN and BBC, two of the largest media companies in the world, presented Islam in the Palestinian civil war during the years 2006-2007. Articles that CNN and BBC published on the Palestinian civil war have been analyzed in order to answer this question. The purpose is to see if Islam is portrayed in an Islamophobic way by CNN and BBC and if it is possible to find discursive tracks from Clash of Civilizations-theory in the analyzed articles. The findings indicate that there are elements of Islamophobia and discursive tracks of Clash of Civilizations when it comes to presenting islam during the Palestinian civil war. Another conclusion is also that CNN and BBC presented islam in different ways during the civil war.