TY  - BOOK
AU  - Humphries,Mark
TI  - Cities and the meanings of late antiquity
T2  - Brill research perspectives. Ancient history
SN  - 9004422609
AV  - HT114 .H86 2019
U1  - 307.760937 23
PY  - 2019///]
CY  - Leiden, Boston
PB  - Brill
KW  - Cities and towns, Ancient
KW  - Cities and towns, Medieval
KW  - fast
N1  - Includes bibliographical references
N2  - The last half century has seen an explosion in the study of late antiquity, which has characterised the period between the third and seventh centuries not as one of catastrophic collapse and 'decline and fall', but rather as one of dynamic and positive transformation. Yet research on cities in this period has provoked challenges to this positive picture of late antiquity. This study surveys the nature of this debate, examining problems associated with the sources historians use to examine late antique urbanism, and the discourses and methodological approaches they have constructed from them. It aims to set out the difficulties and opportunities presented by the study of cities in late antiquity in terms of transformations of politics, the economy, and religion, and to show that this period witnessed very real upheaval and dislocation alongside continuity and innovation in cities around the Mediterranean
ER  -