The Roman Empire was one of the largest and most enduring in world history. In his new book, distinguished historian W. V. Harris sets out to explain, within an eclectic theoretical framework, the waxing and eventual waning of Roman imperial power, together with the Roman community's internal power structures (political power, social power, gender power and economic power). Effectively integrating analysis with a compelling narrative, he traces this linkage between the external and the internal through three very long periods, and part of the originality of the book is that it almost uniquely considers both the gradual rise of the Roman Empire and its demise as an empire in the fifth and seventh centuries AD. Professor Harris contends that comparing the Romans of these diverse periods sharply illuminates both the growth and the shrinkage of Roman power as well as the Empire's extraordinary durability.

Author: William V. Harris
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/28/2019
Pages: 379
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.78d
ISBN: 9781316606667

About the Author
Harris, William V.: - William V. Harris is William R. Shepherd Professor of History at Columbia University, New York. The author of War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (1985), Ancient Literacy (1989), Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (2002, winner of the Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association), Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity (2009) and Rome's Imperial Economy (2011), he has also edited books about ancient money, the ancient Mediterranean, and the spread of Christianity, among other subjects. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, among other honours.