Counterfactuals, Empires, and Institutions: Reflections on Walter Scheidel’s Escape from Rome

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 634-650
Author(s):  
Mark Koyama
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
State Building ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Road ◽  
First Millennium

This essay reviews Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel. It examines the argument that Europe’s persistent fragmentation following the collapse of the Roman Empire is responsible for the origins of the modern world. First, I consider Scheidel’s argument that the rise of Rome at the end of the first millennium BCE was relatively overdetermined, but that once Rome fell, it was highly unlikely for any subsequent empire to dominate Europe. Second, I examine the institutional consequences of this divergence in state building. Finally, I reflect on the role of counterfactuals in history. (JEL Y80)

scholarly journals Jan Chryzostom objaśnia "Hymn o miłości" [1Kor 13] (In I Epistolam ad Corinthios hom. 33-34)

Vox Patrum ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-315
Author(s):  
Jan Iluk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Road ◽  
Shortest Route ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Times ◽  
Autumn And Winter ◽  
The Church

In 1CorHom, edited in the autumn and winter of 392 and 393 AD, John Chrysostom found a natural opportunity to return to his numerous utterances on the role of love in the lives of people. Obviously, the opportunity was the 13“ chapter of this Letter - The Song of Love. Among his works, we will find a few more smali works which were created with the intention of outlining the Christian ideał of love. Many of the contemporary monographs which were devoted to the ancient understanding of Christian „love” have the phrase „Eros and Agape” in their titles. In contemporary languages, this arrangement extends between sex and love. Both in the times of the Church Fathers (the 4th century AD) and currently, the distance between sex and love is measured by feelings, States and actions which are morę or less refined and noble. The awareness of the existence of many stops over this distance leads to the conviction that our lives are a search for the road to Agape. As many people are looking not so much for a shortcut but for a shorter route, John Chrysostom, like other Church Fathers, declared: the shortest route, because it is the most appropriate for this aim, is to live according to the Christian virtues that have been accumulated by the Christian politeia. There are to be found the fewest torments and disenchantments, although there are sacrifices. Evangelical politeia, the chosen and those who have been brought there will find love) - as a State of existence. In the earthly dimension, however, love appears as a causative force only in the circle of the Christian politeia. Obviously, just as in the heavenly politeia, the Christian politeia on earth is an open circle for everyone. As Chrysostom’s listeners and readers were not only Christians (in the multi-cultural East of the Roman Empire), and as the background of the principles presented in the homilies was the everyday life and customs of the Romans of the time, the ideał - dyam] - was placed by him in the context of diverse imperfections in the rangę and form of the feelings exhibited, which up to this day we still also cali love. It is true that love has morę than one name. By introducing the motif of love - into deliberations on the subject of the Christian politeia, John Chrysostom finds and indicates to the faithful the central force that shaped the ancient Church. This motif fills in the vision of the Heavenly Kingdom, explains to Christians the sense of life that is appropriate to them in the Roman community and explains the principles of organised life within the boundaries of the Church. It can come as no surprise that the result of such a narrative was Chrysostonfs conviction that love is „rationed”: Jews, pagans, Hellenes and heretics were deprived of it. In Chrysostonfs imagination, the Christian politeia has an earthly and a heavenly dimension. In the heavenly politeia, also called by him Chrisfs, the Lord’s or the

The ‘Silk Road’: Historical Perspectives and Modern Constructions

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Ravi K. Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
The Silk Road

As it is frequently the case in the modern world, the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Roads’ is of colonial provenance. The elaborate network of ancient routes originating in the fourth millennium bc and linking various parts of the Eurasian landmass through Central Asia was re-imagined and reinvented in the late nineteenth century as a ‘Silk Road’ connecting China with the Roman Empire, thereby undermining the role of the steppe with its various nomadic and oasis cultures which had always been at the heart of this Eurasian system of trade and other exchange. Ever since, historiography has focussed on the role of sedentary civilisations in this system of exchange, with a particular emphasis on China and the West, thus undermining the role of other sedentary civilisations such as India. Contrary to the dominant narrative, the antiquity of the Eurasian trade network goes back to several millennia before the rise of either the Han Empire or Rome. Whereas this network did connect the agrarian civilisations, this happened primarily through the agency of central Asian intermediaries whose culmination is represented by the rise of the vast Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century. The idea of the ‘Silk Road(s)’ is thus anachronistic in the sense that it is a backward projection of present into the historical past, especially in view of the fact that silk was only one among several important items of exchange, such as horses, cotton, precious stones, and furs.

Renaissance, Reformation, and the Road to Westphalia

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-81
Author(s):  
William Bain
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Crucial Step ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Will ◽  
Interpretive Frame

The purpose of this chapter is to challenge the ubiquitous narrative that portrays the transition from medieval to modern as the start of the progressive secularization of international relations. Setting the emergence of the modern states system against the backdrop of medieval institutions and practices privileges evidence of change, while concealing evidence of continuity. The discourse of Westphalia provides the dominant interpretive frame of this narrative. This chapter recovers threads of continuity, without denying the significance of change, by explaining the transition from medieval to modern in the context of change within inherited continuity. It examines the role of the Renaissance and Reformation, events regularly portrayed as harbingers of revolutionary change, in carrying ideas associated with the theory of imposed order into the modern world. The main contention is that the boundary that separates medieval and modern is less fixed and more porous than most theorists of international relations seem to realize. Neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation inaugurate a turn away from religion. Both emphasize the primacy of the will, consistent with the theory of imposed order, which is given to imagining political order as a construction born of word and deed. Recovering the threads of continuity that connect medieval and modern is a crucial step in advancing the larger argument of this book, namely that modern theories of international order reflect a medieval inheritance that can be traced to nominalist theology.

Horse, Wheel, and Saddle

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-191
Author(s):  
Barton C. Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Horse Riding ◽  
Military Revolutions ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

Military revolutions are a normal consequence of the central role of military institutions in complex societies. They have everywhere occurred regularly, if infrequently; they are scarcely limited to Western Europe, or even to the modern world. This essay discusses recent writings on two military revolutions in the ancient world, both centered on the military horse: first, its domestication and its role in pulling war chariots; second, the transition from horse driving to horse riding in battle. The chariot revolution of the second millennium BC profoundly reshaped warfare and transformed polities all across Eurasia. The cavalry revolution of the first millennium BC proved equally transformative and far longer lasting. Despite the controversy that has come to surround the concept of military revolution, it may still be fruitfully applied to important aspects of the large-scale historical interactions between societies and their armed forces.

Ancient and Modern World Views

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Ersin Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Ammianus Marcellinus ◽  
Research Context ◽  
Current State ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Key Events

This chapter brings together the few geographical surveys of Cyprus written by outsiders (i.e. non-Cypriots) during the Roman Empire. The accounts of Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemy, Pausanias, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the anonymous Expositio totius mundi et gentium represent the culmination and transmission of ideas about the island based on key events, scenarios, and anecdotes. Situating the key passages within the motivations and themes of these authors’ works reveals how and why particular ideas about the island and its space came to fruition, what purpose these served, and what the perceived status and role of Cyprus in relation to Rome and to the wider Empire was. Discussion of the wider research-context study of the Roman provinces and the current ‘state of the field’ for the study of Roman Cyprus follows. In Cyprus no colonies were founded by the Romans, nor were any existing towns given colonial status; the island did not receive benefits, nor was it awarded any special status by Rome, despite being taxed. Furthermore, its inhabitants did not engage in aggressive military action to resist Roman control of the island, nor is its Roman period characterized by internal turmoil because of the Roman government, in contrast to some other provincial case studies. Therefore, this investigation draws upon a range of studies and models, utilizing vocabulary that acknowledges identity, culture, and experience as fluid, nuanced, and situational. It also emphasizes the importance of geography, geology, space, and place as active in the formation of local identity

The Role of Crushes on the Road to Autonomy

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (9) ◽  
pp. 18-19
Author(s):  
MICHAEL S. JELLINEK
Keyword(s):  
The Road ◽  
On The Road

Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Victorian Art ◽  
Victorian Science ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Nineteenth Century Novels

How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.

TO SIGNIFICANCE OF ENGLISH IN THE MODERN WORLD*

2019 ◽  
pp. 310-312
Author(s):  
S.L. Mertsalova
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern World

The article considers the role of English language in the modern world. The spheres of human life in which English plays an important role are presented. A number of professions for which English is an integral part have been considered.

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