The Social History of Rome

by Dr Geza Alfoldy

This study, first published in German in 1975, addresses the need for a comprehensive account of Roman social history in a single volume. Specifically, Alföldy attempts to answer three What is the meaning of Roman social history? What is entailed in Roman social history? How is it to be conceived as history?


Alföldy’s approach brings social structure much closer to political development, following the changes in social institutions in parallel with the broader political milieu. He deals with specific problems in seven Archaic Rome, the Republic down to the Second Punic War, the structural change of the second century BC, the end of the Republic, the Early Empire, the crisis of the third century AD and the Late Empire.


Excellent bibliographical notes specify the most important works on each subject, making it useful to the graduate student and scholar as well as to the advanced and well-informed undergraduate.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Roman History, Ancient History

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly, but suprisingly readable considering that this work is very dense, translated from German and with lots of untranslated Latin terms. I was impressed at the author's description of the gradual changes in the upper and lower social strata of the Roman Republic (and, later, Empire), their degrees of homo- and/or heterogeneity and how these changes contributed to the growth, stability (early Empire), instability (Late Republic and Late Empire) and eventual decline and fall of Rome.

[Olivier Goossens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very complex subject brought down to its most simple outlines. Well translated. Well structured. Absolutely perfect starter for anoyone who wants to delve deeper in Roman social history. Some chapters have repititions which might come across as sloppy, but then again, this can be excused by the difficulty of the subject as well as the relative novelty of writing an overview of the social history of the entire Roman period.

[Courtney Sells-Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly learned so much from reading this book. I would read again, to be honest.

[Giuliano Verardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eu li sim, confia.

[Lutz Barz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than most.