| The Invention of Ancient Slavery Contributor(s): McKeown, Niall (Author) |
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ISBN: 0715631853 ISBN-13: 9780715631850 Publisher: Bristol Classical Press OUR PRICE: $34.60 Product Type: Paperback Published: July 2007 Annotation: Slavery was a key institution in antiquity, but historians??? reconstructions of the lives of ancient Greek and Roman slaves have varied significantly, not just across time, but also between different countries today. Core assumptions made about the ancient slave can be subtly different in Germany (for example) than in the US or Britain. This book samples some of the different approaches available. It also examines why the differences exist and what they imply for those trying to discovery the ???reality??? of slave life. It raises key questions about how historians attempt to access the past and the impact that the nature of the evidence has on their work, even when this has not always been made explicit to the reader. Scholarly interpretations sometimes tell us more about the modern world than the ancient. Possible alternatives are explored. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Ancient - Greece - History | Ancient - Rome - Social Science | Slavery |
| Dewey: 306.362 |
| Series: Duckworth Classical Essays |
| Physical Information: 0.53" H x 6.35" W x 8.52" (0.52 lbs) 144 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) - Cultural Region - Greece - Cultural Region - Italy |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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? |
