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The first major study of patronage in the early Empire.
This innovative study of the patriarchy belies the accepted notion of the father figure as tyrannical and exploitative.
In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.
During the Principate (roughly 27 BCE to 235 CE), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? How did the official religion react in the face of the diffusion of alien cults and the emergence of Christianity? These are some of the many questions posed here, in the new, expanded edition of Garnsey and Saller's pathbreaking account of the economy, society, and culture of the Roman Empire. This s...
Provides historical and anthropological perspectives on the Western family, focusing on family life in Italy from the Roman Empire to the present. Topics covered include marriage, divorce, matchmaking, inheritance, sexual mores, celibacy, adoption and property rights.
"The Ancient Economy holds pride of place among the handful of genuinely influential works of ancient history. This is Finley at the height of his remarkable powers and in his finest role as historical iconoclast and intellectual provocateur. It should be required reading for every student of pre-modern modes of production, exchange, and consumption."--Josiah Ober, author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens
Women and Slaves in Classical Culture examines how ancient societies were organized around slave-holding and the subordination of women to reveal how women and slaves interacted with one another in both the cultural representations and the social realities of the Greco-Roman world. The contributors explore a broad range of evidence including: * the mythical constructions of epic and drama * the love poems of Ovid * the Greek medical writers * Augustine's autobiography * a haunting account of an unnamed Roman slave * the archaeological remains of a slave mining camp near Athens. They argue that the distinctions between male and female and servile and free were inextricably connected. This erudite and well-documented book provokes questions about how we can hope to recapture the experience and subjectivity of ancient women and slaves and addresses the ways in which femaleness and servility interacted with other forms of difference, such as class, gender and status. Women and Slaves in Classical Culture offers a stimulating and frequently controversial insight into the complexities of gender and status in the Greco-Roman world.
"Recent works by economic historians of early modern Europe have argued for a link between encyclopedias of the 18th century and the developments culminating in the Industrial Revolution. Diderot and D'Alembert's great Encyclopedie aimed to disseminate useful knowledge for productive growth and was one of the most visible contributions to what economic historian Joel Mokyr has labelled a "culture of growth." While the Ancient Romans didn't have anything like these encyclopedias, they did have its very popular and acknowledged ancestor, the thirty-seven books of Pliny's Natural History. Much has been written about Pliny's view of nature, his scientific thought, his ideology of empire, and so ...
During the first, stable period of the Principate (roughly from 27 BC to AD 235), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth, or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? Why did Roman governments freeze the official religion while allowing the diffusion of alien, especially oriental, cults? Are we to see in their attitude to Christianity a policy of toleration—or simply confusion and a failure of nerve? These are some of the many questions posed in this book, which offers the first overall account of the society, economy and culture of the Roman empire. Addressed to non-specialist readers no less than to scholars, it breaks with the traditional historian's preoccupation with narrative and politics. As an integrated study of the life and outlook of the ordinary inhabitants of the Roman world, it deepens our understanding of the underlying factors in this important formative period of world history.