Ancient history from below : subaltern experiences and actions in context / edited by Cyril Courrier and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira.

Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st ed.
Published/​Created
  • London ; New York, New York : Routledge, [2022]
  • ©2022
Description
1 online resource (321 pages)

Details

Subject(s)
Editor
Series
  • Routledge monographs in classical studies. [More in this series]
  • Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies
Summary note
"If Ancient history is particularly susceptible to a top-down approach, due to the nature of our evidence and its traditional exploitation by modern scholars, another ancient history - 'from below'- is actually possible. This volume examines the possibilities and challenges involved in writing it. Despite undeniable advances in recent decades, 'our slowness to reconstruct plausible visions of almost any aspect of society beyond the top-most strata of wealth, power or status' (as Nicholas Purcell has put it) remains a persistent feature of the field. Therefore, this book concerns a historical field and social groups that are still today neglected by modern scholarship. However, writing ancient history 'from below' means much more than taking into account the anonymous masses, the subaltern classes, the non-elites. Our task is also, in the felicitous expression coined by Walter Benjamin, 'to brush history against the grain,' to rescue the viewpoint of the subordinated, the traditions of the oppressed. In other words, we should understand the bulk of ancient populations in light of their own experience and their own reactions to that experience. But, how do we do such a history? What sources can we use? What methods and approaches can we employ? What concepts are required to this endeavour? The contributions mainly engage with questions of theory and methodology, but they also constitute inspiring case-studies in their own right, ranging from classical Greece to the late antique world. This book is aimed not only at readers working on classical Greece, republican and imperial Rome and late antiquity, but to anyone interested in 'bottom-up' history, and social and population history in general. Although the book is primarily intended for scholars, it will also appeal to graduate and undergraduate students of history, archaeology, and classical studies"-- Provided by publisher.
Notes
  • "Most of the chapters gathered in this volume have their origin as papers delivered at the international conference ‘Ancient History from Below: Possibilities and Challenges,’held at the University of São Paulo in March 2018"--Acknowledgements.
  • Digital title page 2021.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Source of description
Description based on print version record.
Contents
  • Cover
  • Half Title
  • Series Page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents
  • List of figures
  • List of contributors
  • Foreword: what is this history to be?
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • 1 Ancient history from below: an introduction
  • Part 1 Who is below? Subaltern conditions, languages and communities
  • 2 Subaltern community formation in antiquity: some methodological reflections
  • 3 Southern Gaul from below: the limits and possibilities of epigraphic documentation
  • Part 2 Experiences of poverty, dependency and work
  • 4 Poverty, debt and dependent labour in the ancient Greek world: thinking through some issues in doing ancient history from below
  • 5 Destitute, homeless and (almost) invisible: urban poverty and the rental market in the Roman world
  • 6 Roman agriculture from above and below: words and things
  • Part 3 Gender, ethnicity and subalternity
  • 7 Hellenicity from below: subalternity and ethnicity in classical Greece and beyond
  • 8 Subaltern masculinities: Pompeian graffiti and excluded memories in the early Principate
  • Part 4 Politics from below: subaltern agency and collective action
  • 9 Metics, slaves and citizens in classical Athens: rethinking the polis from below
  • 10 What is below? The case of the Athenian riot of 508/7 BC
  • 11 Slave agency in Livy's history of Rome: between rebellion and counterconspiracy
  • 12 The crowd in late antiquity: problems and possibilities of an inquiry
  • Epilogue: agency, past, present and future
  • Index.
ISBN
  • 1-00-300514-4
  • 1-003-00514-4
  • 1-000-44998-X
OCLC
1263874272
Statement on responsible collection description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...
Other views
Staff view