Quantifying the Greco-roman Economy and Beyond
Author: François De Callataÿ
Publisher:
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9788872287446
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Pliny's Roman Economy
Author: Richard Saller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2023-12-05
Total Pages: 216
ISBN-13: 0691229562
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"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 on, but there has been no comparable effort to probe Pliny's economic views and the impact, if any, of his history on Roman economic growth. In Pliny's Roman Economy, eminent Roman historian Richard Saller aims to bring together the economic observations and instances of financial reasoning scattered throughout the Natural History. Taken together, they do not amount to a discipline of "economics," but, Saller argues they do provide insights into Pliny's views about different forms of production and commerce, about labor and agency, about price formation and profitability, about investment and consumption and about technology. Combined with archaeological and other evidence, Pliny's work can also provide us with one of our best textual pictures of the working of the Roman economy"--
Reframing the Roman Economy
Author: Dimitri Van Limbergen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-11-17
Total Pages: 423
ISBN-13: 3031062817
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book focuses on those features of the Roman economy that are less traceable in text and archaeology, and as a consequence remain largely underexplored in contemporary scholarship. By reincorporating, for the first time, these long-obscured practices in mainstream scholarly discourses, this book offers a more complete and balanced view of an economic system that for too long has mostly been studied through its macro-economic and large-scale – and thus archaeologically and textually omnipresent – aspects. The topic is approached in five thematic sections, covering unusual actors and perspectives, unusual places of production, exigent landscapes of exploitation, less-visible products and artefacts, and divergent views on emblematic economic spheres. To this purpose, the book brings together a select group of leading scholars and promising early career researchers in archaeology and ancient economic history, well positioned to steer this ill-developed but fundamental field of the Roman economy in promising new directions.
The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
Author: Sitta von Reden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2022-08-04
Total Pages: 509
ISBN-13: 1108278507
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues.
The Political Economy of Classical Athens
Author: Barry O’Halloran
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2018-11-26
Total Pages: 395
ISBN-13: 9004386157
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRecently there has been a welcome revival of scholarly interest in the economy of classical Greece. In the face of increasingly compelling arguments for the existence of a market economy in classical Athens, the Finleyan orthodoxy is finally relinquishing its long dominion. In this book, Barry O’Halloran seeks to contribute to this renewed debate by re-interrogating the ancient evidence using more recent economic interpretative frameworks. The aim is to re-evaluate accepted orthodoxies and present the economic history of this emblematic city-state in a new light. More specifically, it analyses the economic foundations of Athens through the prism of its navy. Its macroeconomic approach utilises an employment-demand model through which enormous naval defence expenditures created an exceptional period of demand-led economic growth.
Roman Seas
Author: Justin Leidwanger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-03-11
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 0190083662
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThat seafaring was fundamental to Roman prosperity in the eastern Mediterranean is beyond doubt, but a tendency by scholars to focus on the grandest long-distance movements between major cities has obscured the finer and varied contours of maritime interaction. This book offers a nuanced archaeological analysis of maritime economy and connectivity in the Roman east. Drawing together maritime landscape studies and network analysis, Roman Seas takes a bottom-up view of the diverse socioeconomic conditions and seafaring logistics that generated multiple structures and scales of interaction. The material record of shipwrecks and ports along a vital corridor from the southeast Aegean across the northeast Mediterranean provides a case study of regional exchange and communication based on routine sails between simple coastal harbors. Rather than a single well-integrated and persistent Mediterranean network, multiple discrete and evolving regional and interregional systems emerge. This analysis sheds light on the cadence of economic life along the coast, the development of market institutions, and the regional continuities that underpinned integration-despite imperial fragmentation-between the second century BCE and the seventh century CE. Roman Seas advances a new approach to the synthesis of shipwreck and other maritime archaeological and historical economic data, as well as a path through the stark dichotomies-either big commercial voyages or small-scale cabotage-that inform most paradigms of Roman connectivity and trade. The result is a unique perspective on ancient Mediterranean trade, seafaring, cultural interaction, and coastal life.
The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece
Author: Josiah Ober
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2016-10-04
Total Pages: 448
ISBN-13: 0691173141
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA major new history of classical Greece—how it rose, how it fell, and what we can learn from it Lord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a characterization more apt than he knew. Through most of its long history, Greece was poor. But in the classical era, Greece was densely populated and highly urbanized. Many surprisingly healthy Greeks lived in remarkably big houses and worked for high wages at specialized occupations. Middle-class spending drove sustained economic growth and classical wealth produced a stunning cultural efflorescence lasting hundreds of years. Why did Greece reach such heights in the classical period—and why only then? And how, after "the Greek miracle" had endured for centuries, did the Macedonians defeat the Greeks, seemingly bringing an end to their glory? Drawing on a massive body of newly available data and employing novel approaches to evidence, Josiah Ober offers a major new history of classical Greece and an unprecedented account of its rise and fall. Ober argues that Greece's rise was no miracle but rather the result of political breakthroughs and economic development. The extraordinary emergence of citizen-centered city-states transformed Greece into a society that defeated the mighty Persian Empire. Yet Philip and Alexander of Macedon were able to beat the Greeks in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, a victory made possible by the Macedonians' appropriation of Greek innovations. After Alexander's death, battle-hardened warlords fought ruthlessly over the remnants of his empire. But Greek cities remained populous and wealthy, their economy and culture surviving to be passed on to the Romans—and to us. A compelling narrative filled with uncanny modern parallels, this is a book for anyone interested in how great civilizations are born and die. This book is based on evidence available on a new interactive website. To learn more, please visit: http://polis.stanford.edu/.
Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective
Author: Marcella Frangipane
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-09-09
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 3031087631
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book investigates the economic organization of ancient societies from a comparative perspective. By pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, including contributions by archaeologists, historians of antiquity, economic historians as well as historians of economic thought, it studies various aspects of ancient economies, such as the material living conditions including production technologies, etc.; economic institutions such as markets and coinage; as well as the economic thinking of the time. In the process, it also explores the comparability of economic thought, economic institutions and economic systems in ancient history. Focusing on the Ancient Near East as well as the Mediterranean, including Greece and Rome, this comparative perspective makes it possible to identify historical permanencies, but also diverse forms of social and political organization and cultural systems. These institutions are then evaluated in terms of their capacity to solve economic problems, such as the efficient use of resources or political stability. The first part of the book introduces readers to the methodological context of the comparative approach, including an evaluation of the related historiographical tradition. Subsequent parts discuss a range of development models, elements of economic thinking in ancient societies, the role of trade and globalization, and the use of monetary and financial instruments, as well as political aspects.
Paul and Economics
Author: Thomas R. Blanton IV
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published: 2017-06-15
Total Pages: 473
ISBN-13: 1506406041
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe social context of Paul’s mission and congregations has been the study of intense investigation for decades, but only in recent years have questions of economic realities and the relationship between rich and poor come to the forefront. In Paul and Economics, leading scholars address a variety of topics in contemporary discussion, including an overview of the Roman economy; the economic profile of Paul and of his communities, and stratification within them; architectural considerations regarding where they met; food and drink; idol meat and the Lord’s Supper; material conditions of urban poverty; patronage; slavery; travel; gender and status; the collection for Jerusalem; and the role of Marxist theory and the question of political economy in Paul scholarship.
Debt in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East
Author: John Weisweiler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 297
ISBN-13: 0197647170
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn his Debt: The First 5000 Years, the anthropologist David Graeber put forward a new grand narrative of world history. From the Late Bronze Age onwards, all across the Near East and Mediterranean, relationships of mutual obligation were transformed into quantifiable and legally enforceable debts. Graeber suggests that this transformation made possible new economic institutions, such as IOUs, coinage, and chattel slavery. It also led to the emergence of modes of thought that have shaped Eurasian philosophical and religious traditions ever since. Debt in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East explores the implications of this theory for the history of the Mediterranean and Near East. A distinguished group of ancient historians assesses how well Graeber's interpretations fit current understandings of ancient and late antique economies. At the same time, this volume offers a history of premodern credit systems which takes seriously the dual nature of debt as both quantifiable economic reality and immeasurable social obligation. By exploring the diverse ways in which social relationships were quantified in different ancient and late antique societies, the work introduces a method of writing the history of premodern systems of exchange that departs from the currently dominant paradigm of neo-institutional economics.
