The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World)

This is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues. "The Introduction to this Companion sets out the chronological and geographical frame as well as the main issues in the study of the ancient Greek economy. It is targeted at a readership with no prior knowledge of the ancient economy and emphasises the importance of understanding economic structures, economic change and the causes for change. As research on the ancient economy is dependent on theoretical assumptions about the nature and causation of economic change, a special section of the Companion is devoted to the discussion of the most important theoretical approaches to the ancient Greek economy. Other sections treat key themes of the ancient Greek economy, such as taxation, money, markets and labour regimes, as well as network approaches that are currently at the centre of research on ancient economies. A chronologically narrow but geographically wide perspective is taken on the Greek economy, including the Hellenistic economies in Egypt and the Near East, but excluding Greek economies in the Western Mediterranean and those, in the Eastern Mediterranean, that continued to be dominated by Greek language and culture and therefore still might be termed Greek under the Roman Empire"-- Provided by publisher.