Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Although much has been written on Greek and Roman slavery in antiquity, the same cannot be said for slave resistance in this period. Slave revolts have typically been dismissed as historically insignificant or exceptional events resulting from peculiar historical circumstances. In the first in-depth work on this topic to be published in two decades, Theresa Urbainczyk challenges much current thinking by looking beyond the canonical sources to reveal a longer and far more significant history of slave resistance. Her engaging, up-to-date account considers the circumstances of these revolts, looks at slave leaders and how they are recorded in history, explores the aims of slaves, examines attitudes toward freedom and slavery, and more. Dissecting both ancient and modern sources, she finds that the writers who recorded and rerecorded these slave rebellions and wars had every reason to repress large-scale resistance or to reconfigure it as something other than what it was. Slave Revolts in Antiquity also addresses one of the most important issues of our own time: the meaning of freedom itself. Copub: Acumen Publishing Limited

History

Gerrard, Steven

Urbainczyk, Theresa

Ancient Civilizations

University of California Press

Although much has been written on Greek and Roman slavery in antiquity, the same cannot be said for slave resistance in this period. Slave revolts have typically been dismissed as historically insignificant or exceptional events resulting from peculiar historical circumstances. In the first in-depth work on this topic to be published in two decades, Theresa Urbainczyk challenges much current thinking by looking beyond the canonical sources to reveal a longer and far more significant history of slave resistance. Her engaging, up-to-date account considers the circumstances of these revolts, looks at slave leaders and how they are recorded in history, explores the aims of slaves, examines attitudes toward freedom and slavery, and more. Dissecting both ancient and modern sources, she finds that the writers who recorded and rerecorded these slave rebellions and wars had every reason to repress large-scale resistance or to reconfigure it as something other than what it was. Slave Revolts in Antiquity also addresses one of the most important issues of our own time: the meaning of freedom itself. Copub: Acumen Publishing Limited

Americas

Niketas Choniates was in Constantinople when it was burnt and looted by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade and he wrote a history which has always been the mainstay for anyone wishing to learn about the Comnene dynasty and the Byzantine Empire of the twelfth century. Yet it is a very difficult and puzzling text and, given its significance for the period, is understudied. The author says at the start that he wrote his work hoping that even workers and women would be able to profit from it, yet he wrote those words, and the rest of the history, in a highly convoluted, literary and at times opaque style and language. This examination is an introduction to the history of Niketas, and to the author’s views of why this period saw such catastrophe for the Byzantines. It looks at Niketas’ thoughts about history-writing, the emperors, and the Comnene dynasty in particular, about the presence of God in man’s affairs, and the historian’s attitudes to the women of the imperial family.

Writing About Byzantium: The History of Niketas Choniates (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies)

Europe

Routledge

Challenges the orthodoxy and argues that there were many more slave revolts than is usually assumed and they were far from insignificant historically. This book argues that we need to look beyond the canonical sources and episodes to see a bigger history of long-term resistance of slaves to their enslavement.

For many today Spartacus is Kirk Douglas. The influence of Kubrick's film has been enormous, but Spartacus was famous before 1960. For hundreds of years he has been a byword for resistance, revolution and the fight for freedom. He has given his name to a revolutionary party in Germany and a political group in the USA; he is the subject of several novels and films, and even a ballet. Though only a slave, he is as famous as Julius Caesar. Not much information, and much of it negative, survives about him from the ancient world, yet his reputation has survived this character assassination and he is still famous as a popular hero two thousand years after his death. Theresa Urbainczyk explores the man and the myth in this fascinating short treatment of an icon of revolution.

Spartacus (Ancients in Action)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Bristol Classical Press

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Books by Urbainczyk, Theresa

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Urbainczyk, Theresa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Writing About Byzantium: The History of Niketas Choniates (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies)

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Spartacus (Ancients in Action)