Occasionally, a scholarly work is published that is so brilliant, but also so problematic, that it causes the reviewer to be extremely conflicted in their assessment of the overall product. Such is the case with S.’s work. The ‘conflict in content’ makes this book definitely worth the time and effort to read, both to gain a better understanding of the historic milieus that ancient Palmyra/Tadmor interacted with over time and also as a text that assists scholars in honing their craft by noting its cross-disciplinary weaknesses.

The volume is essentially an interweaving of many of S.’s previous works on Rome, Rome in the East, the Palmyrene general Odainat and Byzantine interaction with the Levant, with an attempt to explain and document Palmyra's place within the complex worlds of the only geographical land bridge that connects three continents. The book thus aspires to provide a comprehensive history of Palmyra/Tadmor from its prehistoric beginnings up to, and inclusive of, Palmyra's current role as a cultural heritage site victimised by Syria's ongoing civil war. In reality, the book is one half a ‘history of Palmyra’ and one half a tour de force discussion of the worlds in which ancient Palmyra functioned, with a special emphasis on the political conditions existing during the Hellenistic and Roman Eras in the East. However, this world, according to S., was solely populated by males (both in the past and present), with even Palmyra's famous queen Zenobia relegated to the status of ‘myth and legend’, while her husband, Odainat, is characterised as a ‘real historical figure’. This, despite the use by S. of the same problematic primary documents for each biographical discussion (see e.g. how Odainat and Zenobia are portrayed in Chapter 7, versus Zenobia in Chapter 9 under ‘Legendary Palmyra’, beginning on p. 221). Additionally, according to S., the only modern scholars and archaeologists working at Palmyra before the Syrian Civil War were males who were of predominantly Swiss, German-Austrian or Polish derivation (it should be noted, however, that the decades-long archaeological work of both M. Gawlikowski and A. Schmidt-Colinet in Syria deserves special accolades). While the Japanese expeditions to the south-east Necropolis of Palmyra are mentioned, the directors of these field efforts are not specified. None of the five archaeological missions to Palmyra directed by women, or their publications, are noted or cited in S.’s text or bibliography. For example, S. ignores completely the excavations directed by A. Sadurska of the Polish Mission, M.T. Grassi of the Italian Mission, C. Delplace of the French Mission and C. Finlayson who directed the American Mission, as well as their numerous publications. However, for American scholars who often have difficulty accessing German works on the Roman East, S.’s bibliography is an extremely useful compendium.

To put this more plainly, the book is Eurocentric (German-centric) and the product of an exclusively male gaze. It struggles in some chapters, quite unsuccessfully, with cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship, but at the same time it is of great value within the paradigm of scholarly history with relation to interweaving the historical aspects of the eastern Mediterranean region with the emergence and existence of Palmyra over time. The book's discussion, however, is not able to comprehend nor adequately explain the emergence and the importance of Palmyra as a successful caravan merchant enterprise and eventual political powerhouse nor deal effectively with the ethnography of the cultural and tribal glues that held Palmyra together until the last part of the third century ce. (See Chapter 8, where appropriate ethnographic evidence from the region is not utilised. For example, marriage options as an alliance system within Aramaean/Arab tribal power structures and the maintenance of caravan routes and cooperatives are not mentioned.) The daunting cross-disciplinary approach required to address the historical and cultural contexts of Palmyra thus presents challenges for a historian who is tied by his/her discipline (and thus scholarly perspective) to textual evidence. Such is the case for S.’s history of Palmyra.

The initial chapters concerning the geological development and environment of prehistoric Palmyra are of interest and update considerably the classic art historical work of M. Colledge (The Art of Palmyra [1976]). Chapter 9, ‘Palmyra after the Palmyrenes’, is the most problematic chapter in S.’s book with relation to the treatment of Zenobia as a ‘myth’ or ‘legendary figure’ and the lack of in-depth use of Islamic sources for Palmyra overall; moreover, there is the lack of a chapter that encompasses Palmyra in the Islamic period, which experienced significant Umayyad and Mamluk settlement and development. Perhaps the strongest chapters are 4 and 5 that cover the period of Rome's insertion into the history of the Near East and are thus S.’s special forte. The last chapter comprises a very short assessment and description of the impact of the Syrian Civil War on Palmyra and is useful for those who were not working in Syria at the time. S.’s work, however, does not encompass the multiple reasons for the civil unrest nor discuss the rationale behind ISIL's approach to antiquities and cultural heritage sites nor Saudi Arabia's and Qatar's active involvement in funding and promoting the on-the-ground incitement of Sunni discontent with the Baathist Regime in Syria. Additionally, there is no discussion of the Syrian population's destruction of their own cultural heritage as a popular reaction to the previous development and use of such sites for tourism dollars that enriched the Baathist elite with little benefit given to local populations in many regions of Syria.

S.’s summation of the roots of cultural disconnect between Rome's Empire and the caravan kingdom of Palmyra (pp. 236–7) is highly charged with both a pro-Roman slant as well as a misconstruction and misunderstanding of the events that led to Queen Zenobia's break with Rome. S. seemingly ignores the long-simmering hatred felt towards Imperial Rome in the Hellenised East as well as Rome's failure to maintain a governing system devoid of corruption and the exploitation of provincial populations (The Sibylline Oracles are evidence of this generalised discontent with Roman power in the Eastern provinces). By the troubled third century of Roman rule, provincial discontent spread among even the elites when Imperial forces could no longer maintain the safety of the empire's boundaries in the East through the support of local auxiliary forces and client kingdoms, and thus by default ensure the stability required for economic survival of all classes. Palmyra's final break with Rome and its initial success in the Eastern provinces represented no disconnect based on ‘Roman legal constructs’ versus Palmyrene ‘genealogical assertions to power’ by Odainat's heirs via Zenobia, but rather a long-simmering discontent with the arrogance and misrule of Rome versus the popular ideal of leadership enhanced by the mythology of Alexander the Great in the East (the ideal leader) that espoused a broader benefit to a wider spectrum of the general populace. If the Sibylline Oracles tell us anything, they tell us that Zenobia understood this discontent and moved to exploit it when forced to protect the economic welfare of Palmyra in the face of Roman collapse in the West as well as Sassanian Persian threats to the caravan trade routes and the end of shipping markets in the East and Mediterranean coast. As Cleopatra VII before her (whom Zenobia is said to have admired), Zenobia offered the East an alternative to Roman rule, based on the East's long tradition of the acceptance of female rulers and military leaders who, by the end of the Hellenistic era, espoused the ideals of Alexander's political mythology.

This volume is definitely worth a concentrated read with the above critiques in mind. It is also a prototype (via its critique) for learning how to improve the ways in which the history of the East might be expanded by intensified interdisciplinary scholarship.