Cities and Late Antiquity
In this compact volume for the Brill Research Perspectives series, Mark Humphries discusses the nature of cities in Late Antiquity, recent developments in scholarship, and the ways these new understandings of cities have informed our understanding of Late Antiquity itself. This scholarship has played a particularly prominent role in the recent revival of the "decline and fall" view of Late Antiquity, which had fallen out of favor since Peter Brown's groundbreaking work in the 1970s. Recent developments in archaeology have suggested, some contend, a major contraction of urban space and life in the decades following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a shift they view as a rough proxy for instability, violence, and general "decline."
Humphries disputes this view and argues for a perspective emphasizing the great diversity of cities' fates in this period, and he offers several examples to demonstrate his point. This argument, however, is actually a …
In this compact volume for the Brill Research Perspectives series, Mark Humphries discusses the nature of cities in Late Antiquity, recent developments in scholarship, and the ways these new understandings of cities have informed our understanding of Late Antiquity itself. This scholarship has played a particularly prominent role in the recent revival of the "decline and fall" view of Late Antiquity, which had fallen out of favor since Peter Brown's groundbreaking work in the 1970s. Recent developments in archaeology have suggested, some contend, a major contraction of urban space and life in the decades following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a shift they view as a rough proxy for instability, violence, and general "decline."
Humphries disputes this view and argues for a perspective emphasizing the great diversity of cities' fates in this period, and he offers several examples to demonstrate his point. This argument, however, is actually a small component of the book, which is most valuable for the ways it introduces the reader to the texture of ancient urban life.