Peter Fibiger Bang . The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of Trade and Markets in a Tributary Empire.(Cambridge Classical Studies.)New York : Cambridge University Press . 2008 . Pp. xv, 358. $110.00.
Νeville Morley
Perceptions of the economy Roman Empire are dominated by comparisons, explicit or implicit, with European experience modernization. For classical political economists, Rome was obvious test case, as an equally powerful and sophisticated society, for making sense contemporary developments. As it became clearer that those developments were unprecedented, modern material power far exceeded any earlier this discourse fragmented; economists largely ignored preindustrial societies (assuming nevertheless their analyses economic behavior universally applicable), while ancient historians embarked on interminable debate about level development economy. Some continued to see semi- proto-modern sought identify impediments full take-off; others insisted absolute difference between agrarian-aristocratic society industrial-capitalist modernity. Since evidence is so fragmentary ambiguous, “modernizers” “primitivists” have taken up ever more extreme positions, defining themselves against one another, every new account falling into ruts old arguments. Blinded, perhaps, culture's myth its own origins in antiquity, neither group has questioned appropriateness comparison idea holds key understanding past, despite increasingly sterility debate. It time, Peter Fibiger Bang argues provocative thought-provoking book, “to abandon tyranny Europe over Rome” (p. 59), reconceptualize problem seek appropriate comparisons.
The American Historical Review