The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond

摘要: The Graeco-Roman world, with which I am concerned to the exclusion of pre- Greek Near East, was a world cities. Even agrarian population, always majority, most often lived in communities some kind, hamlets, villages, towns, not isolated farm homesteads.1 It is reasonable and defensible guess that, for better part thousand years, more inhabitants Europe, northern Africa western Asia proportion that matched United States, example, until Civil War. (Admittedly only possible, since statistics are lacking antiquity.) ancients themselves were firm their view civilized life thinkable because Hence growth towns as regular relentless accompaniment spread civilization; eastward after conquests Alexander far Hindukush, west from Britain Roman conquests, number rose into thousands. So self-evident did urban underpinning civilization seem they scarcely engaged serious analysis city.