![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2008: 125
125. David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire 54 BC-AD 409, London, 2006.
Mattingly's title is entirely apt: this is not a book on "Roman Britain", but a book on the relationship of Britain - or rather, the inhabitants of these islands out beyond continental Europe - to the Roman empire.
Actually, the relationships: he places an awful lot of emphasis on how different groups of people related in different ways to imperial power. Thus the experience of empire was different in different regions within Britain, and different also between urban and rural, military and civil zones, and different again in the fourth century to what it was in the first.
He highlights the ways in which Britain's economy (economies) was dependent upon the empire and manipulated for imperial benefit. He integrates regional archaeologies and assesses them in the context of Britain-and-the-empire: he also discusses questions of resistance, accommodation and assimilation, and the extent of possible Iron Age cultural continuities down through the Roman period into the sub-Roman period. He also considers the effect of Roman Britain on what he terms 'Free Britannia' and Ireland in what I found a very interesting chapter, and also spends some time discusses the identities with which Britons could, well, identify.
He spends some time also on pre-conquest contacts with Rome, and a very interesting chapter or so on some possible effects of the Boudiccan revolt.
He's big on context, and on the divergent experiences of empire had by different communities of people. As a critical historian, he is indeed very good: he emphasises diversity and the possibility of reaching different conclusions from the same evidence, whilst presenting clear and thoughtful interpretation and analysis. Where there is, in his opinion, insufficient evidence to form conclusions, he notes that also.
It's a long book, some fifty hundred thirty pages and an extensive bibliographical essay, but comprehensive. Also clearly laid-out, well written, and with thematic/topical divisions that make sense as discrete units and proceed logically from one to the next.
I was, however, somewhat annoyed by the amount of analysis of patterns of pottery consumption in the last forty pages. I don't find pottery fascinating at the best of times: however, the information is again useful and clearly divided.
A very solid book, and one I'd recommend without hesitation to anyone in want of an introduction to the history of Britain in the Roman empire.
125. David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire 54 BC-AD 409, London, 2006.
Mattingly's title is entirely apt: this is not a book on "Roman Britain", but a book on the relationship of Britain - or rather, the inhabitants of these islands out beyond continental Europe - to the Roman empire.
Actually, the relationships: he places an awful lot of emphasis on how different groups of people related in different ways to imperial power. Thus the experience of empire was different in different regions within Britain, and different also between urban and rural, military and civil zones, and different again in the fourth century to what it was in the first.
He highlights the ways in which Britain's economy (economies) was dependent upon the empire and manipulated for imperial benefit. He integrates regional archaeologies and assesses them in the context of Britain-and-the-empire: he also discusses questions of resistance, accommodation and assimilation, and the extent of possible Iron Age cultural continuities down through the Roman period into the sub-Roman period. He also considers the effect of Roman Britain on what he terms 'Free Britannia' and Ireland in what I found a very interesting chapter, and also spends some time discusses the identities with which Britons could, well, identify.
He spends some time also on pre-conquest contacts with Rome, and a very interesting chapter or so on some possible effects of the Boudiccan revolt.
He's big on context, and on the divergent experiences of empire had by different communities of people. As a critical historian, he is indeed very good: he emphasises diversity and the possibility of reaching different conclusions from the same evidence, whilst presenting clear and thoughtful interpretation and analysis. Where there is, in his opinion, insufficient evidence to form conclusions, he notes that also.
It's a long book, some fifty hundred thirty pages and an extensive bibliographical essay, but comprehensive. Also clearly laid-out, well written, and with thematic/topical divisions that make sense as discrete units and proceed logically from one to the next.
I was, however, somewhat annoyed by the amount of analysis of patterns of pottery consumption in the last forty pages. I don't find pottery fascinating at the best of times: however, the information is again useful and clearly divided.
A very solid book, and one I'd recommend without hesitation to anyone in want of an introduction to the history of Britain in the Roman empire.
