Civil War and the Collapse of the Social Bond

The Roman Tradition at the Heart of the Modern

Bibliographic Data

ID23485201
AuthorsMichèle Lowrie (University of Chicago), Barbara Vinken (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Year2022
Publication date2022-10-13
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueCivil War and the Collapse of the Social Bond (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781009029995
OpenAlexW4303195179
Open LibraryOL40326289M
ISBN9781009029995
LanguageEN
Citations received1

Can civil war ever be overcome? Can a better order come into being? This book explores how the Roman civil wars of the first century BCE laid the template for addressing perennially urgent questions. The Roman Republic's collapse and Augustus' new Empire have remained ideological battlegrounds to this day. Integrative and disintegrative readings begun in antiquity (Vergil and Lucan) have left their mark on answers given by Christians (Augustine), secular republicans (Victor Hugo), and disillusioned satirists (Michel Houellebecq) alike. France's self-understanding as a new Rome – republican during the Revolution, imperial under successive Napoleons – makes it a special case in the Roman tradition. The same story returns repeatedly. A golden age of restoration glimmers on the horizon, but comes in the guise of a decadent, oriental empire that reintroduces and exposes everything already wrong under the defunct republic. Central to the price of social order is patriarchy's need to subjugate women.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Empire · Ideology · Order (exchange) · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Roman Empire · Social order · Spanish Civil War · The Republic · Theology · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism

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