Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World

This collaborative volume is concerned with long-term social change.

Michael J. Rowlands (Author), Mogens Larsen (Author), Kristian Kristiansen (Author)

9780521108423, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 April 2009

168 pages
27.9 x 21 x 0.9 cm, 0.39 kg

This collaborative volume is concerned with long-term social change. Envisaging individual societies as interlinked and interdependent parts of a global social system, the aim of the contributors is to determine the extent to which ancient societies were shaped over time by their incorporation in - or resistance to - the larger system. Their particular concern is the dependent relationship between technically and socially more developed societies with a strong state ideology at the centre and the simpler societies that functioned principally as sources of raw materials and manpower on the periphery of the system. The papers in the first part of the book are all concerned with political developments in the Ancient Near East and the notion of a regional system as a framework for analysis. Part 2 examines the problems of conceptualising local societies as discrete centres of development in the context of both the Near East and prehistoric Europe during the second millennium BC. Part 3 then presents a comprehensive analytical study of the Roman Empire as a single system showing how its component parts often relate to each other in uneven, even contradictory, ways.

Preface
Part I. Theoretical Perspectives: 1. Centre and periphery: a review of a concept Michael Rowlands
Part II. Regional Systems and the Genesis of Dependency: 2. The ancient economy, transferable technologies and the Bronze Age world-system: a view from the north-eastern frontier of the Ancient Near East Phil Kohl
3. Cedar forest to silver mountain: social change and the development of long-distance trade in early Near Eastern societies Leon Marfoe
4. On tracking cultural transfers in prehistory: the case of Egypt and lower Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC P. R. S. Moorey
Part III. Regional Interaction and Crisis: 5. Commercial networks in the Ancient Near East Mogens Trolle Larsen
6. Aspects of ceremonial exchange in the Near East during the late second millennium BC Carlo Zaccagnini
7. The collapse of the Near Eastern regional system at the end of the Bronze Age: the case of Syria Mario Liverani
8. Centre and periphery in Bronze Age Scandinavia Kristian Kristiansen
Part IV. Imperial Expansion and its Hinterland: zonal contrasts: 9. Imperial expansion under the Roman Republic Daphne Nash
10. Culture process on the periphery: Belgic Gaul and Rome during the late Republic and early Empire Colin Haselgrove
11. Empire, frontier and the barbarian hinterland: Rome and northern Europe from AD 1–400 Lotte Hedeager
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], General & world history [HBG]