Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective

Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective PDF

Author: Marcella Frangipane

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-09-09

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 3031087631

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This 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.

Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies

Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies PDF

Author: Peter Fibiger Bang

Publisher: Edipuglia srl

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 8872284880

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Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies is a collection of essays which focuses on the art of questioning; it is about ideas and analytical experiment. Ancient economic history has developed enormously since the publication of M.I. Finley’s The Ancient Economy in 1973. Much new material has been brought to bear on the debate on the character of economic life in the Greek and Roman world. But, at the same time, discussions have been going round in circles. This is because not enough attention has been given to the questions ancient historians ask and the concepts with which they approach the economy. In this collection, an attempt is made to renew the terms of the debate by presenting a wide variety of new analytical approaches to ancient economic history ranging from literary theory, cross-cultural comparison, statistical analysis of archaeological data to neo-institutional economics and model-building.

The Organization of Ancient Economies

The Organization of Ancient Economies PDF

Author: Kenneth Hirth

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 1108863671

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In this book, Kenneth Hirth provides a comparative view of the organization of ancient and premodern society and economy. Hirth establishes that humans adapted to their environments, not as individuals but in the social groups where they lived and worked out the details of their livelihoods. He explores the variation in economic organization used by simple and complex societies to procure, produce, and distribute resources required by both individual households and the social and political institutions that they supported. Drawing on a wealth of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic information, he develops and applies an analytical framework for studying ancient societies that range from the hunting and gathering groups of native North America, to the large state societies of both the New and Old Worlds. Hirth demonstrates that despite differences in transportation and communication technologies, the economic organization of ancient and modern societies are not as different as we sometimes think.

The Ancient Economy

The Ancient Economy PDF

Author: Joseph Gilbert Manning

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780804757553

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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.

The Ancient Economy

The Ancient Economy PDF

Author: Moses I. Finley

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1973

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780520024366

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"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

Money, Labour and Land

Money, Labour and Land PDF

Author: Paul Cartledge

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-06-29

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1134644035

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The cultural wealth of the classical Greek world was matched by its material wealth, and there is abundant textual and archaeological evidence for both. However, radically different theoretical and methodological approaches have been used to interpret this evidence, and conflicts continue to rage as these different starting points produce clashing views on the significance and distribution of money, labour and land. Money, Labour and Land reflects the current explosion in ideas and research by assembling case-studies from an international selection of renowned US, British and European scholars. Drawing on comparative historical and anthropological approaches, sociological, economic and cultural theory, and developments in epigraphy, legal history, numismatics and spatial archaeology, this volume will be of interest to all students and scholars of ancient economies.

The Ancient Economy

The Ancient Economy PDF

Author: M. I. Finley

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1999-03

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0520219465

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"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

Complexity Economics

Complexity Economics PDF

Author: Koenraad Verboven

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-11-25

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 303047898X

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Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional economics. Both disciplines, however, still have great difficulty talking with each other. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history. In turn, the shared cultural belief-systems underlying institutions and the symbolic ways in which these are reproduced remain invisible in the material record. This book explores ways to bring both disciplines closer together by building a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate and integrate archaeological proxy-data in economic history research. Rather than the linear interpretations offered by neoclassical or neomalthusian models, we argue that complexity economics, based on system theory, offers a promising way forward.