Yes! And it's so hard to talk about and even to conceptualize properly--our very perceptions of history and of time itself, as denizens of modernity, have been altered by modernity so much that when we look back we naturally project our ideas modern ideas about identity and how it's defined backwards, when in reality it was completely different, from the conception of time to subjectivity to how societies related to each other. And while many aspects of ancient societies were analogous to aspects of our modern societies/global society (such as, frex, what the article at the link calls "multiculturalism"), ancient people didn't think of it in the same way at all--but because the terms used are often superficially similar, or the phenomena look the same at a superficial level, the differences between the discourses are summarily flattened.

And for the same reason it's really hard to find books that address the issue head-on. Thomas LaMarre and Prasenjit Duara have gestured towards it at times in some of their books, but usually in the context of other discussions.

Um, this kind of might be one of my primary research interests--or at least, the difference between ancient and modern (conceptions of) empires, with particular attention to Japan/Northeast Asia.

One of my favorite examples of such ancient commonalities, though, is drama in ancient Japan and ancient Greece (http://starlady38.livejournal.com/324414.html). The similarities are ridiculously obvious, and fascinating, if you know what to look for.