Greek Romans And Barbarians Summary

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Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians (1988) is written by Barry Cunliffe who is an Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University. He specializes in European archaeology from the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD. In Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians, Cunliffe focuses on the development of core and periphery relationships between the Mediterranean area and the interaction with “barbaric” Europe from 600 BC to 400 AD. In addition, he looks at the processes of trade and exchange between these two areas. Cunliffe identifies that the three European-centered cycles that convey core-periphery relationships is Minoan-Mycenaean, Greco-Roman, and West European, however, his focus in this book is on the Greco-Roman cycle. Cunliffe argues that the connection among the Greece and Rome cores and the North European periphery is complex and interconnected. In addition, he argues that the Greek and Roman cores and the North European periphery are …show more content…

The inclusion of various maps and models was also beneficial to help give visual representations of some of the material Cunliffe was discussing, especially when he would talk about various cities, colonies, and regions. In addition, I appreciated that Cunliffe acknowledges throughout his book, the limited scope of this case study and the limits of available data. One criticism would be that one would need to read this book with some background information to fully understand the author’s points. At times, it was difficult to contextualize all of Cunliffe’s points since he talked about a large span of time and space. As a future teacher, I would not have my students read this book, mostly due to the extensive background information one might need to fully comprehend the author’s points, but I would definitely discuss in depth, the concept of core and periphery relationships on a global

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