Ancient Economies: The Challenge of Mapping Complexity

Three recent developments are reshaping the task of the economic historian of the pre-Islamic Old World. An appreciation of the existence of complexity at all levels of activity is replacing simplistic Finleyesque models: the Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, though already old-fashioned in some respects, has provided an invaluable benchmark for further progress: and analytical tools are being borrowed from the social sciences by pioneers with ever-increasing confidence. These developments carry three major implications for those who are active in the specialism. The first is fuelled by the steadily mounting evidence of continual but unstable large-scale movements of human beings, materials, and technologies of all kinds across the entire span of AfroEurAsia and beyond: even small-scale studies need to acknowledge the existence and influence of the macro-regional picture. The second is that prejudices need to be confronted and the use of social-scientific models and techniques be embraced wholeheartedly. The third is the need to accept that economic historians need to look beyond the channels of activity (especially via New Institutionalist Economics) and instead engage with the physio-psychological springs of demand, as they drive economic activity within this or that geo-environment and this or that level of technology.