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If ancient history is particularly susceptible to a top-down
approach, due to the nature of our evidence and its traditional
exploitation by modern scholars, another ancient history—‘from
below’—is actually possible. This volume examines the
possibilities and challenges involved in writing it. Despite
undeniable advances in recent decades, ‘our slowness to
reconstruct plausible visions of almost any aspect of society
beyond the top-most strata of wealth, power or status’ (as
Nicholas Purcell has put it) remains a persistent feature of the
field. Therefore, this book concerns a historical field and social
groups that are still today neglected by modern scholarship.
However, writing ancient history ‘from below’ means much more
than taking into account the anonymous masses, the subaltern
classes and the non-elites. Our task is also, in the felicitous
expression coined by Walter Benjamin, ‘to brush history against
the grain,’ to rescue the viewpoint of the subordinated, the
traditions of the oppressed. In other words, we should understand
the bulk of ancient populations in light of their own experience
and their own reactions to that experience. But, how do we do such
a history? What sources can we use? What methods and approaches can
we employ? What concepts are required to this endeavour? The
contributions mainly engage with questions of theory and
methodology, but they also constitute inspiring case studies in
their own right, ranging from classical Greece to the late antique
world. This book is aimed not only at readers working on classical
Greece, republican and imperial Rome and late antiquity but at
anyone interested in ‘bottom-up’ history and social and
population history in general. Although the book is primarily
intended for scholars, it will also appeal to graduate and
undergraduate students of history, archaeology and classical
studies.
If ancient history is particularly susceptible to a top-down
approach, due to the nature of our evidence and its traditional
exploitation by modern scholars, another ancient history-'from
below'-is actually possible. This volume examines the possibilities
and challenges involved in writing it. Despite undeniable advances
in recent decades, 'our slowness to reconstruct plausible visions
of almost any aspect of society beyond the top-most strata of
wealth, power or status' (as Nicholas Purcell has put it) remains a
persistent feature of the field. Therefore, this book concerns a
historical field and social groups that are still today neglected
by modern scholarship. However, writing ancient history 'from
below' means much more than taking into account the anonymous
masses, the subaltern classes and the non-elites. Our task is also,
in the felicitous expression coined by Walter Benjamin, 'to brush
history against the grain,' to rescue the viewpoint of the
subordinated, the traditions of the oppressed. In other words, we
should understand the bulk of ancient populations in light of their
own experience and their own reactions to that experience. But, how
do we do such a history? What sources can we use? What methods and
approaches can we employ? What concepts are required to this
endeavour? The contributions mainly engage with questions of theory
and methodology, but they also constitute inspiring case studies in
their own right, ranging from classical Greece to the late antique
world. This book is aimed not only at readers working on classical
Greece, republican and imperial Rome and late antiquity but at
anyone interested in 'bottom-up' history and social and population
history in general. Although the book is primarily intended for
scholars, it will also appeal to graduate and undergraduate
students of history, archaeology and classical studies.
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