“How Do We Fit the Roman Empire into World History?”
“There is a growing sense of the need for, even the urgency of change in the study of the Greeks and Romans. A feeling of crisis is often voiced. Some call for a move to ‘decolonise;’ others simply want to ‘burn down’ the classics.” (p. xi)
So begins this challenging book, part of a series titled “Key Themes in Ancient History.” Asking, “How do we fit the Roman Empire into world history?” the author seeks the answer in a comparative analysis of ancient empires.
By the second century, a continuous band of agrarian imperial states extended across the Afro-Eurasian land mass from the Atlantic to the Pacific: Rome, Parthia, Kushan India, Han China. All of these empires faced similar problems and developed similar solutions, despite their very different cultures. Romans had no definite knowledge about the Chinese empire, for example, but they knew and valued Chinese silks that had passed through many hands along a complex trade route that could take years to traverse.
The book is organized in six thematic chapters and a brief conclusion:
- Rome and Pre-colonial World History
- The Expanding World of Warring States: Ecology, State Formation and Slavery
- Among Empires: The Universal Realms of the Afro-Eurasian World
- The Imperial Cosmopolis: Courtly Literary Languages and Monotheist Religions
- Premodern Globalization?: Transcontinental Trade and the Rituals of Consumption in the Afro-Eurasian Arena
- Resistance, Rebellion and Renewal
- Conclusion - Beyond Globalization – The World Histories for Rome
For readers with an interest in military history, Chapters 2 and 6 will be especially relevant. The author notes:
“The speed with which the institution of the war elephant careered from India to the Iberian peninsula is the kind of occurrence that an ancient world history can be built from. Here is a prime example of ancient globalization. But it is a form of globalization driven not by trade, as we are accustomed to expect, but by warfare.” (p. 30)
The chapter on “resistance” observes:
“At all times, some peasants would fall too heavily into debt or be pressed too hard by the demands of rulers and landlords. Some of these chose to give up, move out of reach and establish an existence away from the landlords in more outlying areas, just as some slaves decided to risk flight rather than suffer further abuse. Here they might be joined by military deserters…” (p. 158)
The book is enhanced by numerous well-chosen color illustrations effectively integrated with the text, and several excellent maps. The massive bibliography runs to over 30 pages, mostly citing sources in English from a wide range of scholarly disciplines.
The Roman Empire and World History a highly academic work that assumes the reader has a general familiarity with world history. It would be too difficult a read for most undergraduates, but might be an excellent choice for a graduate-level survey course.
The author, Peter Fibiger Bang (born 25 June 1973) , a professor of Roman history at the University of Copenhagen, holds a PhD in History from Cambridge.
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Our Reviewer: Mike Markowitz is an historian and wargame designer. He writes a monthly column for CoinWeek.Com and is a member of the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine Collectors). His previous reviews include Caesar Rules: The Emperor in the Changing Roman World, Ancient Rome on the Silver Screen, Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint, Persians: The Age of the Great Kings, Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State, At the Gates of Rome: The Battle for a Dying Empire, Roman Emperors in Context, After 1177 B.C., Cyrus the Great, Barbarians and Romans: The Birth Struggle of Europe, A.D. 400–700, Crescent Dawn: The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It, The Roman Provinces, 300 BCE–300 CE: Using Coins as Sources, The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Archaic Greece, Amazons: The History Behind the Legend, The Byzantine World, Classical Controversies, Reassessing the Peloponnesian War, War and Masculinity in Roman and Medieval Culture, Nemesis: Medieval England's Greatest Enemy, The Wars of the Roses: A Medieval Civil War, The Emperor and the Elephant, and Tiberius.
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Note: The Roman Empire and World History is also available in hardback & e-editions.
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