Ancient Egypt and the Near East are central to many histories that aim to look at the world in its entirety, mostly because they are the earliest cultures that are well-documented both with textual and material evidence. This article surveys how these studies use that evidence in the various ways the discipline of world or global history is practiced. Those include chronological narratives of human activities from prehistory up to today, investigations that consider the worlds in which the peoples of ancient Egypt and the Near East lived, and comparative studies that seek to explain how certain features of human society and culture came about. The final question it addresses is whether the people of ancient Egypt and the Near East had any interest in a global history themselves.

古埃及和近东是许多旨在全面了解世界的历史的中心，主要是因为它们是最早的文化，有文字和物质证据。本文概述了这些研究如何以各种方式使用证据来实践世界或全球历史学科。其中包括从史前到今天的人类活动的时间叙事，考虑古埃及和近东人民生活的世界的调查，以及试图解释人类社会和文化的某些特征是如何形成的比较研究。它要解决的最后一个问题是古埃及和近东人民是否对全球历史本身有任何兴趣。