General

Abstract

Originally published in Dutch in 1995, Antiquity. Greeks and Romans in Context by Frederick Naerebout and Henk Singor aims to provide (in its own modest words) a ‘reasonably comprehensive one-volume’ overview of the Greco-Roman world for undergraduates and a wider interested audience (xiii). The main focus of the work is the Greco-Roman world from 1000 bc to 500 bc (divided into the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman Imperial periods). Each period is covered under the same three headings (in the interests of comparability): ‘Historical Outline’, ‘Social Fabric’, ‘Social Life and Mentality’. The wider context is, however, by no means ignored. The authors provide a valuable overview of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods (27–35) and of the early civilizations of Eurasia up to 900 bc (36–58). At the other end of the timeline, the book does not simply conclude with the Roman Imperial period but carries on the story up to the tenth century ad and beyond (369–94). A particular emphasis is placed in the introductory chapter on ‘The Ecology of History’ (11–23): [M]aterial factors can be called the ‘basics’ of history: they determine what, under given circumstances, is possible and what is not; they create preconditions for, and restraints on human life. Thus, every culture has been in many respects the expression of the ways in which some group of human beings managed to adapt to the ecosystem in which they happened to be living, which might also be described as ecological anthropology. (11)