Foreword by Georges Duby Introduction by Paul Veyne 1. Roman Empire by Paul Veyne Introduction From Mother's Womb to Last Will and Testament Marriage Slavery The Household and Its Freed Slaves Where Public Life Was Private "Work" and Leisure Patrimony Public Opinion and Utopia Pleasures and Excesses Tranquilizers 2. Late Antiquity by Peter Brown Introduction The "Wellborn" Few Person and Group in Judaism and Early Christianity Church and Leadership The Challenge of the Desert East and West: The New Marital Morality 3. Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa by Yvon Thebert The Roman Home: Foreword by Paul Veyne Some Theoretical Considerations The Domestic Architecture of the Ruling Class "Private" and "Public" Spaces: The Components of the Domus How the Domus Worked Conclusion 4. The Early Middle Ages in the West by Michel Rouche Introduction by Paul Veyne Historical Introduction Private Life Conquers State and Society Body and Heart Violence and Death Sacred and Secret Conclusion 5. Byzantium in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries by Evelyne Patlagean The Byzantine Empire Private Space Self and Others The Inner Life Private Belief Conclusion Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
Paul Veyne is Professor at the Collège de France. Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.
Private life has always been a matter of public conjecture. This
admirable book brings it intelligently into the web of social
history and is a model for historians and readers alike.
Beautifully produced, it adds apt and rare illustrations to a text
by experts who presuppose human curiosity, but no undue knowledge.
Its range and level of argument will intrigue anyone who has
wondered about past attitudes to such matters as sex and the
family, households, social inferiors, dress and even undress.
*Washington Post*
This first volume is one of the most arresting, original, and
rewarding historical surveys to be published in many years, and its
value is enhanced by the hundreds of illustrations, which present
almost every conceivable detail of private life as it was lived in
the centuries.
*The Atlantic*
A stimulating—indeed a provocative—and beautiful book on a
difficult subject… It’s a treasure.
*Christian Science Monitor*
The five essays collected here…treat readers to a vast array of
anecdotes and conjectures about the private life of our
forebears.
*Wall Street Journal*
A book which makes the reader think, teasing and encouraging with
spicy details, long views, a capacity for the unexpected insight.
Now for something completely different.
*London Review of Books*
This is a long, demanding and very rewarding book. If the remaining
four volumes are of this quality, the series will indeed, as the
editors claim, be ‘a milestone in historical research.’
*Times Higher Education Supplement*
This absorbingly illustrated series is intent on presenting the
past with both physical immediacy and with as little academic fuss
as possible. The illustrations in the first volume have a
subjective penetration of the text that is like an inner musical
accompaniment. This volume does not pretend to roll out a complete
rug of civilization… Few readers, even of I, Claudius, will have
experienced pagan Rome with quite the freshness evident here…
History-to-touch.
*Kirkus Reviews*
The new emphasis on the history of everybody has now been
consecrated in [this] ambitious five-volume series… Copious
illustrative materials—paintings, drawings, caricatures, and
photographs, all cannily chosen and wittily captioned to display
domestic life… Magnificent.
*New York Times Book Review*
Together these five compact volumes cover much of the history of
the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority.
*Washington Post Book World*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |