Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism

Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism
Author: Perry Anderson
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2013-03-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781680086

Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism is a sustained exercise in historical sociology that shows how the slave-based societies of Ancient Greece and Rome eventually became the feudal societies of the Middle Ages. In the course of this study, Anderson vindicates and refines the explanatory power of historical materialism, while casting a fascinating light on the Ancient world, the Germanic invasions, nomadic society, and the different routes taken to feudalism in Northern, Mediterranean, Eastern and Western Europe. Through this work and its companion volume, Lineages of the Absolutist State, Anderson presents a Marxist history of Western political development that takes readers from the first stirrings of political consciousness in the classical world to the rise of absolutist monarchies in Europe and the birth of the modern epoch.

Serçe Limani

Serçe Limani
Author: George F. Bass
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2004-08-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780890969472

For almost a millennium, a modest wooden ship lay underwater off the coast of Serçe Limani, Turkey, filled with evidence of trade and objects of daily life. The ship, now excavated by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. The ship is known as “the Glass Wreck” because its cargo included three metric tons of glass cullet, including broken Islamic vessels, and eighty pieces of intact glassware. In addition, it held glazed Islamic bowls, red-ware cooking vessels, copper cauldrons and buckets, wine amphoras, weapons, tools, jewelry, fishing gear, remnants of meals, coins, scales and weights, and more. This first volume of the complete site report introduces the discovery, the methods of its excavation, and the conservation of its artifacts. Chapters cover the details of the ship, its contents, the probable personal possessions of the crew, and the picture of daily shipboard life that can be drawn from the discoveries.

Farm Equipment of the Roman World

Farm Equipment of the Roman World
Author: K. D. White
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1975-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521203333

This volume deals with equipment and instruments of the Roman world used in processing and storage as opposed to cultivation.

A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome

A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome
Author: David Thurmond
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2006-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047410165

A careful analysis of Roman food processes, including those for cereals, olive oil, wine, other plant products, animal products, and condiments. The work combines analysis of literary and archaeological evidence with that of traditional comparative practices and modern food science.

Stronger Than a Hundred Men

Stronger Than a Hundred Men
Author: Terry S. Reynolds
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 476
Release: 1983
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801872488

Like many apparently simple devices, the vertical water wheel has been around for so long that it is taken for granted. Yet this "picturesque artifact" was for centuries man's primary mechanical source of power and was the foundation upon which mills and other industries developed. Stronger than a Hundred Men explores the development of the vertical water wheel from its invention in ancient times through its eventual demise as a source of power during the Industrial Revolution. Spanning more than 2000 years, Terry Reynolds's account follows the progression of this labor-saving device from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, and America-covering the evolution of the water wheel itself, the development of dams and reservoirs, and the applications of water power.

Food in the Ancient World from A to Z

Food in the Ancient World from A to Z
Author: Andrew Dalby
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135954224

Sensual yet pre-eminently functional, food is of intrinsic interest to us all. This exciting new work by a leading authority explores food and related concepts in the Greek and Roman worlds. In entries ranging from a few lines to a couple of pages, Andrew Dalby describes individual foodstuffs (such as catfish, gazelle, peaches and parsley), utensils, ancient writers on food, and a vast range of other topics, drawn from classical literature, history and archaeology, as well as looking at the approaches of modern scholars. Approachable, reliable and fun, this A-to-Z explains and clarifies a subject that crops up in numerous classical sources, from plays to histories and beyond. It also gives references to useful primary and secondary reading. It will be an invaluable companion for students, academics and gastronomes alike.

Symphosius The Aenigmata

Symphosius The Aenigmata
Author: T. J. Leary
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2014-03-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472506723

The post-classical compilation known to modern scholarship as the Latin Anthology contains a collection of a hundred riddles, each consisting of three hexameters and preceded by a lemma. It would seem from the preface to this collection that they were composed extempore at a dinner to celebrate the Roman Saturnalia. The work was to have a defining influence on later collections of riddles; yet its title (probably the Aenigmata) has been debated, and almost nothing is known about its author: questions have even been asked about his name (Symphosius?) and date (4th-5th centuruy AD?). In this edition of the riddles, the Introducion discusses the work's title and its author's identity: as well as his name and date, it considers his national origin (North African?) and intellectual background (a professional grammarian?), and argues that he was not Christian, as has been suggested. It examines the Saturnalian background to the work, setting it in its sociological context, and discusses the author's literary debts – especially to Martial. The Introduction also explores the author's ordering and arrangement of the riddles, discusses his literary style, Latinity and metre, and comments briefly on his Nachleben. It concludes with a survey of the textual tradition. The commentary on each riddle includes a translation, general notes on the object it describes (with reference, as necessary, to museums and artefacts), and discussion of how it fits into the ordering of the collection, of variant readings and, with suitable illustration, of literary, stylistic and metrical considerations. Other areas, such as history and mythology, are also covered where relevant.

History of Technology Volume 10

History of Technology Volume 10
Author: Norman Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2016-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350018430

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Volumes contain technical articles ranging widely in subject, time and region, as well as general papers on the history of technology. In addition to dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, History of Technology also explores the relations of technology to other aspects of life -- social, cultural and economic -- and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.