Recovering Roman Britain: researches and readings

My project involved the completion of the writing of a book entitled 'Recovering Roman Britain, researches and readings'. This work is to be published by Oxford University Press during the next year. After discussion with the publishers, the title has been revised to 'The Rediscovery of Roman Britain; A Colony so fertile'.

This book explores the impact of classical texts and material culture on perceptions of the immediately pre-Roman and Roman past of Britain. It forms part of an increasingly cross-disciplinary focus on the imperial context of studies of the British past. Each age has interpreted the Roman Empire in ways that relate to current interests & concerns. One dominant idea, which remains significant today, is that the Romans brought Mediterranean culture 'civilization' to 'barbarian' people in northern Europe, including Britain. This imported culture is felt to have included, on one hand, imposed peace, order, urban life, organised bathing and Christianity and, on the other, despotism, enslavement and cultural domination. Ideas derived from these contrasting perspectives have long proved fundamental in the ways that the mythical origins of the people of 'Western' nations and their cultures, including the people of Britain, have been imagined and interpreted (see articles in R. Hingley [ed.] 2001 Images of Rome). Such ideas have been used to express contrasting pictures of the inherent freedom of native peoples (Picts, Celts, etc) or the order and 'civilization' brought to Britain by Rome. At various times, different aspects of the past have been stressed. For example, under Elizabeth I and James I, Roman Britain was projected as an ancestral source for national identity, imagined through the former unity of the province of Britannia; during the C19, Roman Britain provided a source of ideas for the military control and assimilation of territories overseas; today people adopt ideas such as 'What the Romans did for us'. In my new book, the works of antiquarians and archaeologists - including William Camden, William Roy, Samuel Lysons and Francis Haverfeld - are studied through a thematic framework which explores the idea that Roman contact and conquest brought civility (civilized behaviour / ordered government) to the lowland Britons, while excluding the 'barbarian' populations of northern and western Britain from the benefits of colonial control. An opposing tradition is also explored, that the peripheralized populations actively and valiantly resisted Roman control and the consequential introduction of servility.

The book also addressed the ways that transforming knowledge of the ancient and classical past of Britain was used as the foundation for a civilizing discourse in the conquest and control of Ireland, Scotland, North America and India, drawing on the former colonial status of Britain to justify the control of territories in Britain and overseas. Ideas about civility Romanization and the purpose and nature of the frontiers, forts, villas and Roman cities are studied from this perspective. Changes you will be logged out automatically after twenty minutes of system inactivity. Typing in a text box is not detectable