Roman Republican Imperialism in Italy and the West

Abstract

Over the last two decades, archaeologists and historians have undertaken a substantial reevaluation of the Roman republic's expansion in Italy and the West. The emerging picture is of an imperial experience that was complex and nuanced yet also quite uneven in its impact and consequences than that illuminated by an earlier generation. The domi nant descriptive vocabulary in these volumes?integration, identity, continuity, and innovation?and the less-frequent use of the term Romanization reflects this change in per spective. In many ways, this evolution in thought is indicative of our expanding knowledge of events and developments in the Late Republican period and of a greater understand ing of the difficulties and risks of advancing overly simplis tic explanations of human agency and intent. I applaud the editors and authors of these volumes for the care and thought they put into their papers; there is good value in most all of them.