The Ancient Economy

by Manning, Joseph Gilbert; Morris, Ian

• ISBN13: 9780804748056
• ISBN10: 0804748055
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-05
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Historians and archaeologists normally assume that the economies of ancient Greece and Rome between about 1000 BC and AD 500 were distinct from those of Egypt and the Near East. However, very different kinds of evidence survive from each of these areas, and specialists have, as a result, developed very different methods of analysis for each region. This book marks the first time that historians and archaeologists of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome have come together with sociologists, political scientists, and economists, to ask whether the differences between accounts of these regions reflect real economic differences in the past, or are merely a function of variations in the surviving evidence and the intellectual traditions that have grown up around it. The contributors describe the types of evidence available and demonstrate the need for clearer thought about the relationships between evidence and models in ancient economic history, laying the foundations for a new comparative account of economic structures and growth in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Author Biography

J. G. Manning is Associate Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor of History at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	ix
List of Tables	xi
List of Contributors	xiii
Introduction	1	(46)
Ian Morris
J. G. Manning
Part I: The Near East
The Near East: The Bronze Age	47	(11)
Mario Liverani
The Economy of the Near East in the First Millennium BC	58	(26)
Peter R. Bedford
Comment on Liverani and Bedford	84	(7)
Mark Granovetter
Part II: The Aegean
Archaeology, Standards of Living, and Greek Economic History	91	(36)
Ian Morris
Linear and Nonlinear Flow Models for Ancient Economies	127	(30)
John K. Davies
Comment on Davies	157	(6)
Takeshi Amemiya
Part III: Egypt
The Relationship of Evidence to Models in the Ptolemaic Economy (332--30 BC)	163	(24)
J. G. Manning
Evidence and Models for the Economy of Roman Egypt	187	(20)
Roger S. Bagnall
Part IV: The Roman Mediterranean
``The Advantages of Wealth and Luxury'': The Case for Economic Growth in the Roman Empire	207	(16)
R. Bruce Hitchner
Framing the Debate Over Growth in the Ancient Economy	223	(16)
Richard Saller
Comment on Hitchner and Saller	239	(4)
Avner Greif
Bibliography	243	(38)
Index	281