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Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World

Online ISBN:
9780191793301
Print ISBN:
9780198726494
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World

Claire Taylor (ed.),
Claire Taylor
(ed.)

John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek History

John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Kostas Vlassopoulos (ed.)
Kostas Vlassopoulos
(ed.)

Associate Professor in Greek History

Associate Professor in Greek History, University of Nottingham
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Published online:
18 June 2015
Published in print:
1 April 2015
Online ISBN:
9780191793301
Print ISBN:
9780198726494
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book examines the diversity of networks and communities in the classical and early Hellenistic Greek world with particular emphasis on those that took shape within and around Athens. In doing so, it highlights not only the processes that created, modified, and dissolved these communities, but also shines a light on the interactions through which individuals with different statuses, identities, levels of wealth, and connectivity participated in ancient society. By drawing on two distinct conceptual approaches, that of network studies and that of community formation, this book showcases a variety of approaches which fall under the umbrella of ‘network thinking’ in order to move the study of ancient Greek history beyond structuralist polarities and functionalist explanations. The aim is to reconceptualize the polis not simply as a citizen club, but as one interlinked community amongst many. Doing so (a) allows subaltern groups to be seen not as passive objects of exclusion and exploitation, but as active historical agents, (b) emphasizes the processes of interaction as well as the institutions created through them, and (c) reveals the interpenetration between public institutions and private networks which integrated different communities within the borders of a polis and connected them with the wider world.

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