USD $84.00
Politics in the Roman Republic: Perspectives from Niebuhr to Gelzer
Series:
Author:
B. G. Niebuhr, the founder of ‘modern history’, exerts an enduring influence; even in death, Goethe once claimed, ‘[Niebuhr] still walks around and works’. Today, Niebuhr is a humbler phantom, rarely invoked and largely forgotten. Similar fates await the shades of Theodor Mommsen, Friedrich Münzer, and Matthias Gelzer. Yet, each demands reconsideration and revitalization. Their texts remain foundational, constituting the conceptual and methodological core of Republican political studies.
Politics in the Roman Republic (re)presents the first critical, comprehensive, Anglophone survey of these scholars’ influence. Its innovative reassessments dispel deep-seated misconceptions and emphasize relevance. The work’s unique (re)interpretations render it essential reading for any student of Rome: specialist and non-specialist alike.
Cary M. Barber, Ph.D. (2016), The Ohio State University, is Assistant Professor of History at California State University San Bernardino. He has written on political culture in the Roman Middle Republic, ancient demography, and Late Antique administration and culture.
"Cary Barber’s
Politics in the Roman Republic: Perspectives from Niebuhr to Gelzer is a tour de force of intellectual history. In this slim volume consisting of six chapters, Barber offers historiographical surveys of the works of Bartold Niebuhr, Theodor Mommsen, Friedrich Münzer, and Matthias Gelzer, with particular attention to their study of Republican politics. Given the prominence of these figures in the study of Roman history, it may come as a surprise that their views need further explication. But Barber has an epistemological goal at the heart of his analysis, and it is one that is worth hearing out.(...) Barber ends his book with a plea for new work (...) a call for new ways of looking at Roman political structures. (...) Barber’s thesis: European intellectual traditions from the 18th and 19th centuries still heavily influence how we think about ancient Roman politics."
Dominic Machado in Polis: Journal of Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 41.2 (2024)
Dominic Machado in Polis: Journal of Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 41.2 (2024)
Editors’ Note
Acknowledgments
Politics in the Roman Republic: Perspectives from Niebuhr to Gelzer
Cary M. Barber
Abstract
Keywords
1 The ‘Long Nineteenth Century’ of Historiography
2 Prelude to Niebuhr’s ‘Historiography of the Future’
3 Barthold Georg Niebuhr’s ‘Revolution’
4 In the Shadow of Mommsen
5 Münzer, Gelzer, and the ‘Social Scientific’ Tradition
6 Perspectives on Roman Politics, Past and Present
Bibliography Index
Acknowledgments
Politics in the Roman Republic: Perspectives from Niebuhr to Gelzer
Cary M. Barber
Abstract
Keywords
1 The ‘Long Nineteenth Century’ of Historiography
2 Prelude to Niebuhr’s ‘Historiography of the Future’
3 Barthold Georg Niebuhr’s ‘Revolution’
4 In the Shadow of Mommsen
5 Münzer, Gelzer, and the ‘Social Scientific’ Tradition
6 Perspectives on Roman Politics, Past and Present
Bibliography Index
Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, non-specialists and specialist scholars alike. Relevant fields include Roman history, Greek history, ancient Mediterranean studies, Greek and Latin philology, historiography, and intellectual history.