Hellenistic Economies Tapa dura - 2000

Primera línea

Why 'Hellenistic' and why 'economies'?

Descripción de la solapa

The economies of classical and Mediterranean antiquity are a battleground: some scholars see them as lively and progressive, even proto-capitalist; others view them as static, embedded in social action and status relationships. Hellenistic Economies contributes substantially to the debate, by juxtaposing general questions of theory and model-building with case studies which examine specific areas and kinds of evidence.

The focus is on the Mediterranean from 330 -- 30 BC, as the central period of ancient history, when previously separate or loosely-linked political, social, cultural and economic processes came to interact more closely, forming what we now know as 'classical antiquity'. Although neglected by theorists in recent decades, it provides an ideal repertoire of evidence -- of the intersections of city, rural and royal economies; of the effects of monetisation and urbanisation; of the power inherent in the possession and control of primary materials such as salt, corn or timber; of the social and political resonances set up when goods moved long distances within a landscape of micro-regions; and of the economic and other effects of royal and civic systems of patronage and benefaction.

This volume breaks new ground by distilling and presenting new and newly-reinterpreted evidence for the Hellenistic period, much of it unfamiliar but of prime importance for all students of antiquity. It opens the debate about how the Rostovtzeffian picture of the period should be replaced: and it offers a set of interpretative ideas which the debate about ancient economies cannot afford to ignore.