Theorising Comparative History for the Ancient Mediterranean examines how ‘soft’ comparative history can illuminate the ancient Mediterranean world. This approach employs alternative periods and settings to prompt new understandings of antiquity, but differs from a side-by-side ‘hard’ comparison. This volume represents the first attempt to theorise the methodology and scrutinise its value for studying the ancient world. The book’s ten chapters examine a cross-section of ancient cultures (Greece, Rome, Egypt, India, Afghanistan, China) and range across political, social, economic, cultural, intellectual, and military history, demonstrating the versatility of the approach. Contributions draw from a variety of comparative settings (e.g. Spanish America, contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, Early Modern Europe, the Antebellum American South) and demonstrate that there are myriad comparative paths to prompt rethinking about antiquity. Each contributor reflects on their own individual practice, and the introduction meditates on the strengths, limitations, and commonalities across these chapters. The volume thus offers a blueprint for how scholars in various fields can utilise comparative history.
Chapter 1: ‘Soft’ Comparative History: Theories and Methods Stephen Harrison and Dylan James
Part 1: Comparative Approaches to Slavery in Antiquity
Chapter 2: Ancient Mediterranean Slavery and the Comparative History of Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic
Kostas Vlassopoulos
Chapter 3: Enslaved Workers and Affective Labour in Ancient Rome and the Antebellum South: Agency and Strategies
Alex Cushing
Chapter 4: Comparative Medical Experimentation: 18th and 19th Century Slavery and the Ancient Mediterranean
Jordan Cohen
Part II: Comparative Approaches to Social and Economic Organisation
Chapter 5: Coercion, Capital and the Hellenistic Mediterranean
David Rafferty
Chapter 6: Social Organisation and Agricultural Production in the Judean and Samarian Hill Country
Michael Economou
Chapter 7: Using Comparative History to Illuminate the Monetary Implications of Peer-to-Peer Credit in Late Antique Egypt
Elizabeth Buchanan
Part III: New World Perspectives on Mediterranean Antiquity
Chapter 8: Gubernatorial authority and local jurisdiction in the Roman Republican East and early Spanish America
Bradley Jordan
Chapter 9: Local Guides and Comparative History: Reflections on Alexander and Columbus
Dylan James
Chapter 10: Alexander in Bactria and India, and the Spanish in America: Agency and Interaction on the Fringes of Empire
Stephen Harrison
Part IV: A Philosopher’s Perspective
Chapter 11: ‘Soft’ and ‘hard’ approaches in the history of emotions: the case of Greece and China
Jingyi Jenny Zhao
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