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| A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (History of Private Life) | 
 enlarge | Creators: Paul Veyne, Phillippe Aries, Georges Duby, Arthur Goldhammer
Publisher: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 85277
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7 x 1.4
ISBN: 0674399749
Dewey Decimal Number: 390.009
EAN: 9780674399747
ASIN: 0674399749
Publication Date: September 1, 1992
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| Similar Items:
| • | A History of Private Life, Volume II, Revelations of the Medieval World (History of Private Life) | | • | A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance (History of Private Life) | | • | A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War (History of Private Life) | | • | A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times (History of Private Life) | | • | A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints (History of Women in the West) |
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Product Description
First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slaves--from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces. The emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs, the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the results of new research and the broad interpretations that only masters of the subject can provide.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 The shifting ground of ancient family life February 17, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a fine collection of essays on the changing quality of family life as classical Rome shifted to medieval Rome. I found its accounts of early Christianity's impact on personal life particularly interesting. For example, Michele Rouche shows how evolving church doctrines on marriage affected families in Western Europe. In the long process of conversion, many missionaries seemed to assume that cultural standards from the old Near East were those of God, while those native to Europe came from the Devil. Most clergymen taught that the church's rites and approval were necessary for valid marriage, but for centuries this was hard to enforce. The priests could not simply declare all existing marriages invalid. Still, they increasingly denounced families that formed their own bonds independently, saying that these couples were living in sin. The clerics taught that lovers who separated and found other lovers were "bigamists", and their children were "bastards". The church informed local people that lovers of the same sex were "sodomites". Many European women found it shocking that the church condemned lesbian lovers, demanded they abandon each other, and required them to perform heavy "penances for sin". (p. 533)
The book traces slow but big changes in human relations, rights, duties, expectations and dreams over several centuries. It gives perspective on the options we face as families today.
--author of "Different Visions of Love"
 A disorganized, disjointed, and disappointing read June 21, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is one of those doppelgangers which appear to be something good and excellent on the outside but wind up being something, well, otherwise. The cover art at once draws you in, and just flipping through the pages, the multitude of interior plates, both color and b&w, are completely engrossing.
Sadly, the text of this book is practically worthless from a scholarly perspective. The authors make a variety of highly questionable claims throughout the book, very few of which are backed up with meaningful citations. For such a large book, the reference list at the back is pathetic. Hardly any primary sources are listed at all, even though many are mentioned in the text. Worse, the various authors write in a style which makes it appear that their claims are universally accepted and completely above debate. No serious academic would long tolerate such flaws in a work which pretends to make a contribution to scholarship.
It appears, however, that the book is meant for undergraduate level students and general readers. The publisher has clearly produced it with an eye to a wide audience. But this is precisely the type of book that a student or a reader with scant knowledge of ancient history should avoid. One doesn't have to read very far before it becomes clear that this book is primarily a philosophical/political tract masquerading as history. That's not to say that there is no presentation of valid historical facts here. The trouble is, these facts are often cherry-picked to fit neatly into a certain philosophical point of view that is never explicitly defined, only hinted at. Other extant facts that might harm or invalidate this point of view are routinely de-emphasized or ignored. If you want a clue as to what this over-riding philosophical point of view might be, you need only read the tribute given to Michel Foucault, a destructive critic of western civilization, by Paul Veyne in his introduction to the section on the Roman Empire.
There are simply too many questionable claims made in this book to challenge in a review, so I'll limit my criticisms to a couple big picture issues. The single greatest problem I had with this book is that it is not really a "History of Private Life." Discussions of hygiene, diet, maternity, child growth and development, adolescence, play, religious practices, trades, occupations, domestic architecture (except for one very out-of-place chapter), furnishings, farm life, medical care, personal finance, etc. are scanty when they exist at all. Meanwhile, the subjects of slavery, death, and sexuality (particularly deviant forms of sexuality) are covered in exquisite detail, again and again, chapter after chapter. If nothing else, one is left with a very clear notion of what the authors consider the key elements of "private life."
Another major problem involved the scope of the work. Though claiming to cover all the ground between "Rome and Byzantium," the book is highly idiosyncratic in what it covers and what it leaves out. The authors spill a great deal of ink on classical Roman civilization, but expend comparatively little on Christian Roman life between the 4th and 7th centuries. And aside from a brief foray into Merovingian private life, there is nothing on the other Germanic successor states that conquered the western empire. The chapter on Byzantium is completely cursory and covers only the 9th through 12th centuries, leaving everything from the 6th through 8th centuries, including the well-recorded Justinianic period, completely ignored.
Last but not least, there are also some very basic content and consistency problems with this book. A particularly humorous example is on page 81 where the author parenthetically claims that "cats were not yet domesticated in Rome." Meanwhile, an image directly to the right of this text shows a Roman relief of a young girl holding a cat, very obviously domesticated. There is also at least one example of a photo bearing the wrong caption. But these are certainly minor quibbles compared to the ones above.
Lest I sound completely down on this book, however, I should point out that the chapter on domestic architecture in Roman Africa by Yvon Thebert was as excellent as it was out of place. It deserved a book of its own, rather than to be a single grain of wheat amidst a heap of chaff.
Over all, this is a terrible book dressed up in a nice package. Its ultimate goal is to attract unsuspecting non-specialist readers and to fill their minds with a very scholarly-sounding but poorly-grounded and skewed version of history. As such, it is a subtle piece of propaganda which should not be confused with an actual description of what private life was really like in ancient Rome or Byzantium. Admittedly, though, the pictures are nice. Had the authors left the text in the original French, I would heartily endorse this book for an English speaking audience.
Invaluable resource November 17, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fascinating in parts; illustrative of things I had not known or even suspected, things I had read allusions to previously, and things I never would even have thought studied. Of course, you need an interest in Roman and Byzantine life; and even if you have such an interest, not all the details will hold your attention. Some of the cross cultural comparisons were beautifully illustrative (one that sticks was a comparison between the economy of a present day middle eastern country to that of the Empire). I am pretty sure this suffered from some sort of idiological bias, as it was weirdly contradictory in places, though it is an original/odd enough bias that it it probably unique to the authors. One of the authors at least, seemed to be an intimate of Michel Foucault. All were french, and the prose suffers for it to the point of being occasionally downright nonsensical. The book certainly rid me of any "golden age" delusions I might have had, regarding Roman times. I'll stick with my electric can opener, microwave ovens, annoying legal system, and Blue Cross HMO thanks very much.
 Classic of the Annales School November 2, 2004
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is the product of the methodology created by the annales school of historians in france. Founded in the late 20's, the Annales school pioneered the use of the methods and teachings from other schools of social science in the service of history. This approach spurned a focus on wars and politics in favor of a focus on "everyday life" i.e. the life of non-presidents and generals.
The general editors of this book (Durby and Aries) were pioneers of the approach, along with it's most famous author: Braudel. See his work on the mediteranean, or Aries' classic "In the Hour of Our Death".
These authors are second and third generation. The work is, on the whole, excellent, but it's a distinct style of scholarship, which may account for some of the confusion in the other reviews.
Each chronological segment is written by a different author. The section on Rome is an anchor to the whole five volume series. The secton on late antiquity is a bit brief. I skipped the chapter on roman domestic architecture in africa. The period on the early middle ages is rich and fascinating, but too brief. I could have read a whole book on the Merovinigian empire in northern Gaul! The chapter on the Byzantine empire focuses on the later empeire (900-1200(?) and the source material for the last chapter seems to consist almost of entirely of information on monastery life.
Over all, one is struck by the dramatic, though gradual, shift from pagan rome to early christianity. It is a unique book, and well worth reading.
Motley crew August 10, 2002
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is the first volume of a multi-author endeavor to trace the changes in private attitudes, beliefs, benaviors, and lifestyles from the early Roman Empire to the late twentieth century. The first volume begins with the early Roman Empire and ends with the apogee of the Byzantine Empire. Containing five lenghty essays by different authors (mainly French -- the whole project is a French one) dealing with the early Roman Empire, the late Roman Empire, housing and architecture in Roman Africa, Merovingian Gaul, and tenth and eleventh-century Byzantium. The project is a fresh and invigorating look at the ways that societies change. There are several excellent illuminations in this book. We are shown that the notion of Roman "sexual liberation" is not well-founded; that Christianity did not change Western views on sex and the body, but that Christianity adopted the views of the poorer (and more numerous) Roman classes; how architecture can reveal much about a society; and that the major change between the late Empire and the early medieval had to do with notions of "private" and "public." Although the book is interesting and useful, there are some reasons to criticize it. Most of the attention is given to the early Roman Empire, which consumes almost one third of the book. Entirely too much space is given to the chapter on architecture in Roman Africa -- it is significantly longer than the chapter on the late Empire. The chapter entitled "The Early Middle Ages in the West" is really only about Merovingian Gaul, and does not always have the change between the late Empire and early medieval as a focus. The chapter on Byzantium did not seem to fit with the rest of the book. The reason for including Byzantium in this volume rather than the next volume (Middle Ages) was to show Byzantine culture as a continuation of Roman culture. Unfortunately, the piece was not about the early Byzantine, but rather the middle Byzantine era, thus having no connection with the rest of the book. It is also dubious that the book begins with the Roman Empire, not the Roman Republic or classical Greece. Paul Veyne says that this decision was made because Rome was essentially Greek in character, and that a section on Greece and a section on Rome would be repetitive. This is weak reasoning at best, but, given the lenght of the book as it stands now, it may still have been a good decision. Finally, the book is not footnoted or endnoted. There is a lengthy bibliography and a small notes section in the back, but assertions, ideas, and evidence are not clearly referenced. I do not know if this is how French scholarship is done, or if this major chunk of scholarship was left out in the interest of marketing the book to a lay audience. Either way, it is frustrating, and only hurts the academic value of this major project. Despite these critical comments, I view the book as an excellent effort and an enlightening read. Too often history is about events, not people, and these historians have made a noble attempt to humanize our past.
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