Capitalizing on the rich historical record of late antiquity, and employing sophisticated methodologies from social and economic history, this book reinterprets the end of Roman slavery. Kyle Harper ...challenges traditional interpretations of a transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, arguing instead that a deep divide runs through 'late antiquity', separating the Roman slave system from its early medieval successors. In the process, he covers the economic, social and institutional dimensions of ancient slavery and presents the most comprehensive analytical treatment of a pre-modern slave system now available. By scouring the late antique record, he has uncovered a wealth of new material, providing fresh insights into the ancient slave system, including slavery's role in agriculture and textile production, its relation to sexual exploitation, and the dynamics of social honor. By demonstrating the vitality of slavery into the later Roman empire, the author shows that Christianity triumphed amidst a genuine slave society.
Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands plumbs the archaeological record for what it can reveal about the creation of personal and communal identities in the Maya world. Using new ...primary data from her excavations at the sites of Yaxuna, Chunchucmil, and Xuenkal, and new analysis of data from Dzibilchaltun in Yucatan, Mexico, Traci Ardren presents a series of case studies in how social identities were created, shared, and manipulated among the lowland Maya.Ardren argues that the interacting factors of gender, age, familial and community memories, and the experience of living in an urban setting were some of the key aspects of Maya identities. She demonstrates that domestic and civic spaces were shaped by gender-specific behaviors to communicate and reinforce gendered ideals. Ardren discusses how child burials disclose a sustained pattern of reverence for the potential of childhood and the power of certain children to mediate ancestral power. She shows how small shrines built a century after Yaxuna was largely abandoned indicate that its remaining residents used memory to reenvision their city during a time of cultural reinvention. And Ardren explains how Chunchucmil's physical layout of houses, plazas, and surrounding environment denotes that its occupants shared an urban identity centered in the movement of trade goods and economic exchange. Viewing this evidence through the lens of the social imaginary and other recent social theory, Ardren demonstrates that material culture and its circulations are an integral part of the discourse about social identity and group membership.
This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political ...instability in state-level societies. Although a number of competing ideas for the collapse have been proposed, none provide a comprehensive explanation that incorporates the interaction of all the multiple drivers involved. We argue that the four-fold population explosion peaking in the 19th century, the growing competition for a stagnant number of elite positions, and increasing state fiscal stress combined to produce an increasingly disgruntled populace and elite, leading to significant internal rebellions. We find that while neither the ecological disasters nor the foreign incursions during the 19th century were sufficient on their own to bring down the Qing, when coupled with the rising internal socio-political stresses, they produced a rapid succession of triggering events that culminated in the Qing collapse.
This article discusses the concept of symmetry as Felix Klein developed it in his works on geometry as a measure of invariance. The objective is to generalize from Klein’s model and principles to be ...able to apply the concept of symmetry to the study of social structures or social formations in sociology. To achieve this goal, the article goes on to consider how the concept of symmetry bears on the
of George Spencer-Brown and on Niklas Luhmann’s theory of functional differentiation. Both of them are reinterpreted in terms of symmetry breaking.
In Social Mobility in Late Antique Gaul, Allen Jones explores the situation of the non-elite living in Gaul during the late fifth and sixth centuries. Drawing especially on evidence from Gregory of ...Tours' writings, he formulates a social model based on people of all ranks who were acting in ways that were socially advantageous to them, such as combining resources, serving at court, and participating in ostentatious religious pursuits, such as building churches. Viewing the society as a whole, and taking into account specific social groups, such as impoverished prisoners, paupers active at churches, physicians, and wonder-working enchanters, Jones creates an image of Barbarian Gaul as an honor-driven, brutal, and flexible society defined by social mobility. His work also addresses topics such as social engineering and competition, magic and religion, and the cult of saints.
This book gives a structured account of Egypt's transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule by identifying key relationships between ecology, land tenure, taxation, administration and politics. It ...introduces theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and subjects them to empirical scrutiny using data from Greek and Demotic papyri as well as comparative evidence. Although building on recent scholarship, it offers some provocative arguments that challenge prevailing views. For example, patterns of land ownership are linked to population density and are seen as one aspect of continuity between the Ptolemaic and Roman period. Fiscal reform, by contrast, emerges as a significant mechanism of change not only in the agrarian economy but also in the administrative system and the whole social structure. Anyone seeking to understand the impact of Roman rule in the Hellenistic east must consider the well-attested processes in Egypt that this book seeks to explain.
This Article explores the connection between the carceral strategy utilized by the Chinese government and the social structure in the Mao era. From Mao’s view, thought reform and profit-seeking were ...the two primary goals of the Chinese socialist prison. Yet, by placing the system of labor camps and post-release management into a broader context, this Article demonstrates that the system was designed to make inmates depend on the socialist settings through the measures of party-state apparatus, prisoner cards and dossiers, classification of prisoners, hard labor, and thought remolding. Those measures had their counterparts in the general social structure in communist China, like work unit, household registration and political dossier. In addition, the unique feature of punishment-profit nexus made the system of labor camps and post-release management crucial for the purposes of economic development and political control in Mao’s time. In conclusion, the system of labor camps and post-release management was an integral part of the greater social control mechanism in Chinese society during Mao’s time. It was designed and operated in a way to reform an ill population into qualified workers so as to fit socialist requirements and maintain social stability.
Love, Intimacy and Power Barclay, Katie
2013, 2013., 20130719, 2011, 2011-08-05, 2013-07-19, 20110101
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Through an analysis of the correspondence of over one hundred couples from the Scottish elites across the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, this book explores how ideas around the nature of ...emotional intimacy, love, and friendship within marriage adapted to a modernising economy and society. Patriarchy continued to be the central model for marriage across the period and as a result, women found spaces to hold power within the family, but could not translate it to power beyond the household. Comparing the Scottish experience to that across Europe and North America, Barclay shows that throughout the eighteenth-century, far from being a side-note in European history, Scottish ideas about gender and marriage became culturally dominant. This book will be vital to those studying and teaching Scottish social history, and those interested in the history of marriage and gender. It will also appeal to feminists interested in the history of patriarchy.
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