The Ancient City

by Arjan Zuiderhoek

Overview

Greece and Rome were quintessentially urban societies. Ancient culture, politics and society arose and developed in the context of the polis and the civitas. In modern scholarship, the ancient city has been the subject of intense debates due to the strong association in Western thought between urbanism, capitalism and modernity. In this book, Arjan Zuiderhoek provides a survey of the main issues at stake in these debates, as well as a sketch of the chief characteristics of Greek and Roman cities. He argues that the ancient Greco-Roman city was indeed a highly specific form of urbanism, but that this does not imply that the ancient city was somehow 'superior' or 'inferior' to forms of urbanism in other societies, just (interestingly) different. The book is aimed primarily at students of ancient history and general readers, but also at scholars working on urbanism in other periods and places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521166010
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2016
Series:	Key Themes in Ancient History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Arjan Zuiderhoek is Associate Professor of Ancient History at the Department of History, Ghent University. He is author of The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 2009) and editor, with Paul Erdkamp and Koenraad Verboven, of Ownership and Exploitation of Land and Natural Resources in the Roman World (2015).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: the ancient city as concept and reality; 2. Origins, development and spread of cities in the ancient world; 3. City and country; 4. Urban landscape and environment; 5. Politics and political institutions; 6. Civic ritual and civic identity; 7. Urban society: stratification and mobility; 8. The urban economy; 9. City-states and cities and states; 10. The end of the ancient city?

Editorial Reviews

'This book is a thoughtful study of cities in the ancient world, arguing that the similarities between the Greek and Roman models far outweighed the differences.' Rupert Jackson, Classics for All

'… this compact scholarly book will be useful to scholars of urbanism across many disciplines.' CHOICE

From the Publisher