Tal A. Ish Shalom

Tal Ish-Shalom is a Hellenistic and Roman historian, whose research is at the intersection of political and cultural history. He studies how changes in political superstructures (e.g., the consolidation and disintegration of empires) affect the culture and identity of subject communities and local elites, and how the cultural history of local communities can help illuminate empire in turn. His current book project, State Formation and Ethnic Identity in the Late-Seleucid Levant (200-63 BCE), offers new perspectives on Hellenistic, Phoenician and Jewish history, and on the problem of "Hellenization"—the adoption and adaptation of Greek cultural idioms by non-Greek communities. Dr. Ish-Shalom's interests extend to the Roman period, as reflected in his article, "Provincial Monarchs as an Eastern Arcanum Imperii: 'Client Kingship', the Augustan Revolution and the Flavians," published in The Journal of Roman Studies. It argues that a specific group of Rome's eastern "client kings" played a hitherto overlooked role in a cardinal event in Roman political history, the regime change from Republic to Empire in the late 1st century BCE (the "Augustan Revolution"). The proposed model for these "provincial monarchs" also offers a novel explanation for the shift in the patterns of Roman imperialism towards direct rule under the Flavian dynasty in the late 1st century CE.