rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    non sort: The
    title: conqueror's gift
    sub title: Roman ethnography and the end of antiquity
  title info:
    title: Roman ethnography and the end of antiquity
  name:
    name part: Maas, Michael
    name part: 1951-
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: biography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nju
    date issued: 2025
    copyright date: 2025
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xv, 432 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
  abstract: "An account of the central role that ethnography played in the Roman empire and its transformation in Late Antiquity. Ethnography, broadly understood, is a key element in the toolkit of every empire, as important as armies, tax-collectors, or ambassadors. It helps rulers articulate cultural differences with outsiders and sometimes bridge them, and it lets the inhabitants of an empire, especially those who guide its course, understand themselves and their place in the midst of the enemies, allies, and friends who surround them. Whenever provinces are drawn, peace treaties and alliances framed, diplomats sent on mission, decisions taken to go to war, or simply life lived in the midst of unfamiliar voices, some kind of ethnographic vision must come into play. This ethnographic infrastructure, as ancient historian Michael Maas calls it, supports the empire's view of itself regarding the nations of the world, and it shapes and reflects actual interactions with them. Ethnography is not simply a reflection of changes. It also enables change by providing terms and concepts that give voice to the articulation of new circumstances. In this book, Maas argues that, to understand how the Roman Empire transformed in the crucial period of Late Antiquity, the empire's ethnographic underpinnings, especially as they were affected by Christianity, must be examined. As Maas demonstrates, Romans knew they lived in a world of great cultural diversity, movement, and instability. They believed that their empire imposed order upon it. Images of barbarians filled public spaces throughout the empire as reminders of Roman control. Writers likewise filled their pages with descriptions of foreigners in a wide variety of genres. These ethnographies, according to Maas, served three general functions. First, they described foreign peoples, placing them in established and accessible systems of knowledge. Second, they judged them on a register of distance from Roman norms, with 'most like us' the bes…
  abstract: "Ethnography is indispensable for every empire, as important as armies, tax collectors, or ambassadors. It helps rulers articulate cultural differences, and it lets the inhabitants of the empire, especially those who guide its course, understand themselves in the midst of enemies, allies, and friends. In The Conqueror's Gift, Michael Maas examines the ethnographic infrastructure of the Roman Empire and the transformation of Rome's ethnographic vision during Late Antiquity. Drawing on a wide range of texts, Maas shows how the Romans' ethnographic thought evolved as they attended to the business of ruling an empire on three continents. Ethnography, the 'conqueror's gift,' gave Romans structured ways of finding a place for foreigners in the imperial worldview and helped justify imperial action affecting them. In Late Antiquity, Christianity revolutionized the imperial ethnographic infrastructure by altering old concepts and introducing credal models of community. The Bible became a source for organizing the Roman world. At the same time, many previously unseen collective identities emerged across Western Eurasia in reaction to the diminution of Roman power. These changes deeply affected the Empire's ethnographic infrastructure and vision of the world. Maas argues that a major consequence of these developments was the beginning of a sectarian age, as individuals and political communities came to identify themselves primarily in terms of religion as well as ethnicity. As they adjusted to changing ethnographic realities, Romans understood their place among the peoples of the world in new ways. Willingly or not, we continue to be recipients of the conqueror's gift today."--
  table of contents: Empires need ethnography -- Conquest and curiosity : creating a Roman imperial ethnography -- "Hostilities and Friendlies" : diplomacy and patterns of subordination to Rome -- "Include Me Out" : ethnography, settlement, and the law at the edges of empire -- Divine providence and the power of the stars -- The controlling hand of the environment -- Christianity and the descendants of Noah -- Babel and the languages of faith -- The new ethnography of Christian heresy -- The conqeror's gift.
  note: Michael Maas.
  note: Includes bibliographical references (pages 361-495) and indexes.
  subject:
    geographic code: e------
    geographic code: aw-----
    geographic code: ff-----
  subject:
    topic: Ethnology
    geographic: Rome
  subject:
    geographic: Rome
    topic: History
    temporal: Empire, 284-476
  subject:
    geographic: Rome
    topic: Ethnic relations
  subject:
    geographic: Rome
    topic: Histoire
    temporal: 284-476 (Bas-Empire)
  subject:
    topic: Ethnologie
    geographic: Italie
  classification: DG78 .M2 2025
  classification: 937/.09
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Conqueror's gift
    name:
      name part: Maas, Michael R., 1951-
    origin info:
      publisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2024]
    identifier: (DLC) 2023052163
  identifier: 9780691259024
  identifier: 069125902X
  identifier: 9780691259048
  identifier: 2023052162
  location:
    physical location: POD
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 231121
    record change date: 20250622023913.4
    record identifier: in00005648319
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng