The Invention of Ancient Slavery / Edition 1

by Niall McKeown

Overview

Slavery was a fundamental institution in the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, but little agreement. The modern debate has sometimes been bitter - unsurprisingly, given its background in the abolitionist atmosphere of the 19th century. As we enter the 21st century the battleground has started to shift: can the historian hope to reconstruct the life of ancient slaves, or just fragments of their image in Greek and Roman literature? More than most topics, the ancient slave has therefore attracted constant modern redefinition. But how far do we see the slave better, and how far do we, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, use the idea of the slave to offer a refracted image of ourselves?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780715631850
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/26/2007
Series:	Classical Essays
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Niall McKeown is Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Birmingham.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements     6
Introduction     7
The Changing Face of Roman Slavery     11
Ancient Slavery and Modern Geography     30
Struggling with Class: Shtaerman, Trofimova and a Marxist View of Roman Slavery     52
Keith Bradley: Passionate about Slavery     77
'I too want to tell a story...': Some Modern Literary Scholars and Ancient Slavery     97
A Scientific Approach to Ancient Slavery?     124
The Greeks Do It (a Bit) Better: The Opportunities of Silence     141
Conclusions     159
Bibliography of Works Cited     165
Index     172

Editorial Reviews

McKeown has written a stimulating book that will challenge its readers to reflect on the difficulties inherent in writing the history of ancient slavery. Scholars who specialize in ancient slavery will inevitably disagree with some of McKeown s interpretations of both the ancient evidence and modern scholarship, but will still benefit from his critical orientation. Arguably, the book will be of most use to those who teach classes on ancient slavery, for it will force students to deal head-on with questions of methodology that are central to any effort to reconstruct the past.

From the Publisher