The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As ...a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham combines documentary and archaeological evidence to create a comparative history of the period 400-800. His analysis embraces each of the regions of the late Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt. The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These give only a partial picture of the period, but they frame and explain other developments. Earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions. This book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.
Mediterranean states have developed various cooperation mechanisms in order to cope with the issues that arise from migration. This book critically analyses how institutional actors act and interact ...on the international scene in the control and management of migration in the Mediterranean. It highlights how, even though the involvement of 'universal' international organisations guarantees a certain balance in setting the goals of cooperation mechanisms and buttresses a certain coherence of the actions, the protection of migrants' fundamental rights is still an objective as opposed to a reality, and security imperatives and trends still prevail in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring.
The interactions of the Celtic-speaking communities of Southern Gaul with the Mediterranean world have intrigued commentators since antiquity. This book combines sociolinguistics and archaeology to ...bring to life the multilingualism and multiple identities of the region from the foundation of the Greek colony of Massalia in 600 BC to the final phases of Roman Imperial power. It builds on the interest generated by the application of modern bilingualism theory to ancient evidence by modelling language contact and community dynamics and adopting an innovative interdisciplinary approach. This produces insights into the entanglements and evolving configurations of a dynamic zone of cultural contact. Key foci of contact-induced change are exposed and new interpretations of cultural phenomena highlight complex origins and influences from the entire Mediterranean koine. Southern Gaul reveals itself to be fertile ground for considering the major themes of multilingualism, ethnolinguistic vitality, multiple identities, colonialism and Mediterraneanization.
Materiality and Social Practice investigates the transformative potential arising from the interplay between material forms, social practices and intercultural relations. Such a focus necessitates an ...approach that takes a transcultural perspective as a fundamental methodology and, then a broader understanding of the inter-relationship between humans and objects. Adopting a transcultural approach forces us to change archaeology's approach towards items coming from the outside. By using them mostly for reconstructing systems of exchange or for chronology, archaeology has for a long time reduced them to their properties as objects and as being foreign. This volume explores the notion that the significance of such items does not derive from the transfer from one place to another as such but, rather, from the ways in which they were used and contextualised. The main question is how, through their integration into discourses and practices, new frameworks of meaning were created conforming neither with what had existed in the receiving society nor in the area of origin of the objects.
The 'Arab Spring' triggered paradigmatic shifts but, despite these changes, much in the Euro-Mediterranean region remains the same. Utilising 'Logics of Action', an innovative theoretical framework ...designed to capture the complexity of political interaction in one of the fastest changing regions in the world, this book discusses developments in the region before and after the Arab Spring that can be characterised by a continuation of the norm. Expert contributors identify patterns of interaction between governmental institutions, economic entrepreneurs, religious groups and other diverse actors that withstood these historical changes and explore why these relationships have proved so robust. Connecting a unique sample of case studies on changing and persistent 'Logics of Action' within the Euro-Mediterranean space this book provides a pivotal contribution to our understanding of political interaction between North Africa, the Middle East and the European Union. Offering a completely new perspective on the events of the 'Arab Spring' it identifies something that seems paradoxical at first sight; persistence in times of radical change.
Against the backdrop of England's emergence as a major economic power, the development of early modern capitalism in general and the transformation of the Mediterranean, Maria Fusaro presents a new ...perspective on the onset of Venetian decline. Examining the significant commercial relationship between these two European empires during the period 1450–1700, Fusaro demonstrates how Venice's social, political and economic circumstances shaped the English mercantile community in unique ways. By focusing on the commercial interaction between Venice and England, she also re-establishes the analysis of the maritime political economy as an essential constituent of the Venetian state political economy. This challenging interpretation of some classic issues of early modern history will be of profound interest to economic, social and legal historians and provides a stimulating addition to current debates in imperial history, especially on the economic relationship between different empires and the socio-economic interaction between 'rulers and ruled'.
Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited
brings together leading experts on the political economies
of southern Europe-specifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and
Portugal-to closely analyze and explain the ...primary socioeconomic
and institutional features that define "Mediterranean capitalism"
within the wider European context. These economies share a
number of features, most notably their difficulties to provide
viable answers to the challenge of globalization.
By examining and comparing such components as welfare, education
and innovation policies, cultural dimensions, and labor market
regulation, Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited attends to
both commonalities and divergences between the four countries,
identifying the main reasons behind the poor performance of their
economies and slow recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
This volume also sheds light on the process of diversification
among the four countries and addresses whether it did and still
does make sense to speak of a uniquely Mediterranean model of
capitalism.
Contributors: Alexandre Afonso, Leiden University; Lucio
Baccaro, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies; Rui
Branco, NOVA University of Lisbon; Fabio Bulfone, Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Societies; Giliberto Capano, University
of Bologna; Sabrina Colombo, University of Milan; Lisa Dorigatti,
University of Milan; Ana M. Guillén, University of Oviedo; Matteo
Jessoula, University of Milan; Andrea Lippi, University of
Florence; Manos Matsaganis, Polytechnic University of Milan; Oscar
Molina, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Manuela Moschella,
Scuola Normale Superiore; Sofia A. Pérez, Boston University; Gemma
Scalise, University of Bergamo; Arianna Tassinari, Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Societies.
The present geomorphology of the Mediterranean's coasts is largely a product of an intricate long-term relationship between Nature and human societies. A cradle of ancient civilisations, the ...Mediterranean has seen its shores occupied by Humans since Prehistory, and is, therefore, a particularly pertinent unit of analysis. The morphotectonic context and other forcing agents (e.g., climate) shaped out a highly diversified coastal morphology and generated a sediment-supply regime potentially favourable to the formation of numerous open-coast deltas and bay-head deltas in infilled rias as sea level stabilised during the mid-Holocene. This supply of riverine sediment has also been the key agent in mediating human occupation of the Mediterranean's clastic coasts. Expressions of this relationship have been extensively archived in clastic coastal deposits, including base-level deltaic and estuarine sedimentary sinks, which comprise records to explore the interactions between geosystems and the human environment. The stratigraphic sequences in these coastal sedimentary archives comprise, in many places, a clearly identified anthropogenic signature, notably in ancient harbours, some of which underwent extremely rapid silting up due to massive sediment sourcing generated by new agricultural practices from the Neolithic onwards. Increasing human influence, especially over the last 3000 years, has been, in turn, an important driver of changes in sediment supply, strongly modulating deltaic development. Pulses of sediment supply from catchments rendered vulnerable by human perturbations during the Roman period resulted in a new cycle of inception of many other deltas and in rapid delta growth (e.g. the Ebro, the Po, the Arno and the Ombrone). Another progradation dynamic during the Little Ice Age, at a time of strong rural population growth, river discharge increases, technological developments, and urbanisation, further consolidated delta growth. Understanding the life cycle of these deltas since their initial formation is, in turn, key to unravelling the relative role of natural and anthropogenic forcing agents. Rapid climate changes are deemed to have contributed through both the stripping of landscapes rendered fragile by human activities and active fluvial sediment transport to the coast, but disentangling climate change effects from human impacts in the Mediterranean remains a challenge. The patterns of subsequent deltaic growth and delta morphodynamics reflect adaptations to pulsed sediment supply, river discharge variations, the microtidal, fetch-limited context of the Mediterranean, and direct engineering interventions. The progradation dynamic of the Roman period and Little Ice Age contrasts markedly with the situation of common coastal destabilisation over the last two centuries, particularly well documented for the last 50 years. This period has been characterised by reduced sediment flux to base-level geosystems due to catchment reforestation, retenion within reservoirs, fluvial regulation and dredging, resulting in the erosion of deltas and barrier-lagoon and beach-dune systems. Large stretches of shoreline and narrow coastal plains have been massively engineered for coastal defence and protection against erosion, but also for the construction of marinas, leisure harbours and artificial beaches, resulting in the emergence of veritable artificial seafronts. These interventions have, collectively and progressively, raised societies to a pervasive and overarching position in the geomorphic stability-instability of the Mediterranean's coasts, a situation that will be exacerbated by pressures from sea-level rise, paving the way for rampant coastal erosion and delta destruction.
The Sea in the Middle Burman, Thomas E; Catlos, Brian A; Meyerson, Mark D
08/2022
eBook
The Sea in the Middle presents an original and revisionist
narrative of the development of the medieval west from late
antiquity to the dawn of modernity. This textbook is uniquely
centered on the ...Mediterranean and emphasizes the role played by
peoples and cultures of Africa, Asia, and Europe in an age when
Christians, Muslims, and Jews of various denominations engaged with
each other in both conflict and collaboration. Key features:
Fifteen-chapter structure to aid classroom use
Sections in each chapter that feature key artifacts relevant to
chapter themes
Dynamic visuals, including 190 photos and 20 maps
The Sea in the Middle and its sourcebook companion,
Texts from the Middle , pair together to provide a
framework and materials that guide students through this complex
but essential history-one that will appeal to the diverse student
bodies of today.
Against the background of unease at the increasingly loose and conflictual relationship between citizenship and governance, this book brings together rich, ethnographic studies from EU member states ...and post-Communist and Middle-Eastern countries in the Mediterranean Region to illustrate the crisis of legitimacy inherent in the weakening link between political responsibility and trust in the exercise of power.
With close attention to the impact of the ambiguities and distortions of governance at the local level and their broader implications at the international level, where a state's legitimacy depends on its democratic credentials, Citizenship and the Legitimacy of Governance initiates a comparative discussion of the relationship between established moralities, politics, law and civil society in a highly diversified region with a strong history of cultural exchange. Demonstrating that a comparative anthropological analysis has much to offer to our understanding, this volume reveals that the city is a crucial arena for the renegotiation of citizenship, democracy and belonging.
