used historical contexts to explore how economic actions relate to ways in which human populations develop modes of thinking. In Bringing in the Sheaves, Shaw explores the relationship between the reaping of cereal crops in the Roman Empire and the ways in which people began thinking about death and vengeance in their social relations. Shaw has also brought his historical knowledge to a wider audience through publications in History Today, The New Republic, the New Left Review, and The New York Review of Books. The Neronian persecution Shaw created controversy in 2015, when an article he published on the Journal of Roman Studies argued that Emperor Nero had not, as it is generally believed, persecuted Christians following the Great Fire of Rome. While Shaw accepted the authenticity of the passage of Tacitus about Christians in the Annals, he argued that Tacitus was using legendary and apocalyptic Christian sources to write his work; he also argued that the term "Christians" was not in use during Nero's reign and that Christians in Rome weren't so numerous to be persecuted. Shaw's views have received strong criticism and have generally not been accepted by the scholarly consensus: writing on New Testament Studies, Christopher P. Jones (Harvard University) answered to Shaw and refuted his arguments, noting that the Tacitus's anti-Christian stance makes it unlikely that he was using Christian sources; he also noted that the Epistle to the Romans of Paul the Apostle clearly points to the fact that there was indeed a clear and distinct Christian community in Rome in the 50s and that the persecution is also mentioned by Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars. Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) was also critical of Shaw's argument, dismissing it as "vague and hazy". Writing on Eirene: Studia Graeca et Latina, Brigit van der Lans and Jan N. Bremmer (University of Groningen) also dismissed Shaw's argument, noting that the Neronian persecution is recorded in many 1st-century Christian writings, such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, the apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah, the First Epistle of Peter, the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of Clement; they also argued that Chrestianus, Christianus, and Χριστιανός were probably terms invented by the Romans in the 50s and then adopted by Christians themselves. In an article for Vigiliae Christianae, John Granger Cook (LaGrange College) also rebuked Shaw's thesis, arguing that Chrestianus, Christianus, and Χριστιανός are not