Just sitting down with this massive new 2 vol. collection on Roman law and economy from @OUPAcademic, unabashedly modernizing in its perspective, full of innovative work by a host of new names along w/ some v familiar ones; here are 3 rapid reactions,1/4: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/roman-law-and-economics-9780198787204?cc=ca&lang=en&

Those following Temin's debated idea that the entire empire contained an integrated grain market, he publishes a response to @bransbourg (paper linked). I have to say, I still agree with Bransbourg... 2/4 http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/3/

The modernizing is striking. Parsons Miller's opening essay acknowledges Boldizzoni's polemical 2011 critique of modernist approaches as "convincing" but then just moves on: ancient actors were rational. The result feels almost religious; MI Finley is hardly mentioned again. 3/4

E Lo Cascio has yet another excellent contribution on the Roman economy, tempering his often modernist view with perceptively close reading of the sources. To my mind, his arguments work best for legal world of the later empire, but was this rly still a period of econ growth? 4/4