The fundamental question of ancient history is precisely this: Why were Israel and Judah the creators of the highest spiritual culture, the culminating socio-ethical ideals of the prophets, while Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt, so in their material culture, failed to attain the humanitarian and pacific ideal which the Jews had proclaimed to mankind? Theologians and metaphysicians explain this by divine or supernatural predestination of a chosen people but a sociologist offers a more simple explanation: a small, peaceful nation situated between politic.