# Naoíse Mac Sweeney **Entity class:** Person (historian) **Domain:** Ancient History / Historiography of the West **Concept Hub:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] ## Definition **Naoíse Mac Sweeney is a historian of the ancient Mediterranean and author of *The West: A New History in Fourteen Lives* (Dutton, 2023; published in the United Kingdom as *The West: A New History of an Old Idea*, WH Allen).** The book challenges the "grand narrative" of an unbroken golden thread running from classical antiquity to the modern West, treating that continuity as a later construction. ## Role in the Corpus [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] cites her work as the strongest scholarly demonstration that the West's definition is authored: a civilization can be historically real while the story connecting its pieces remains contested. [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] lists her among its counter-positions, alongside Mathias Risse's February 18, 2026 reply to [[wiki/Marco Rubio|Marco Rubio]]. ## Relationships - **Hub:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] · [[wiki/Charter Civilization|Charter Civilization]]. - **Adjacent concept:** [[wiki/Translatio Imperii|Translatio Imperii]] (the medieval continuity doctrine her work historicizes). - **Source article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] in [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]]. ## Sources / Provenance - Naoíse Mac Sweeney, [The West: A New History in Fourteen Lives](https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-593-47217-0) (Dutton, 2023; Publishers Weekly listing).