The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-roman World

In this, the first comprehensive one-volume survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarize the current state of scholarship in their specialized fields and sketch new directions for research. The approach taken is both thematic, with chapters on the underlying determinants of economic performance, and chronological, with coverage of the whole of the Greek and Roman worlds extending from the Aegean Bronze Age to late antiquity. The contributors move beyond the substantivist-formalist debates that dominated twentieth-century scholarship and display a new interest in economic growth in antiquity. Newmethods for measuring economic development are developed, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately. Fully accessible to a broad readership, the volume represents a major advance in our understanding of the economic expansion thatmade the civilization of the classicalMediterranean world possible.