Exploring the Economy of Late Antiquity
Selected Essays

This book contributes to a new economic history of late antiquity, with tightly argued, stimulating studies of class, money and exchange.

Jairus Banaji (Author)

9781107499539, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 November 2018

273 pages, 2 tables
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.43 kg

This collection of essays, by leading historian Jairus Banaji, provides a stimulating rebuttal to the prevailing minimalism in late antique studies. Together, they strike a balance between the wide lens and more specialised discussion, expanding on the perspective and argumentation laid out in an earlier book, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (2001). Successive chapters discuss the scale of the late Roman gold currency, the economic nature of the aristocracy, the importance of trade, relations between the state and the ruling class, and the problem of continuity into the early Middle Ages. A substantial introduction pulls together the themes of the book into a coherent synopsis, while the preface clarifies the broad aims behind the study. The book as a whole deploys a wide range of sources in various languages and is intended for ancient historians, students of late antiquity, and economic historians more generally.

Preface
Introductory essay: 1. Mass production, monetary economy and the commercial vitality of the Mediterranean
Part I. Mapping the Late Antique Economy: 2. Mickwitz's modernism: the writings of 1932–6
3. State and aristocracy in the economic evolution of the Late Empire
4. The economic trajectories of late antiquity
Part II. Money Circulation (Rules, Rhythms): 5. Discounts, weight standards and the exchange rate between gold and copper
6. Precious metal coinages and monetary expansion in late antiquity
Part III. Aristocracies and Estates: 7. Aristocracies, peasantries and the framing of the early Middle Ages: 8. Late antique aristocracies: the case of Iran
Part IV. Beyond the Mediterranean and Late Antiquity: 9. Late antique legacies and Muslim economic expansion
10. 'Regions that look seaward' - changing fortunes, submerged histories, and the slow capitalism of the sea.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]