Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000.06.02 Gian Pietro Brogiolo,
Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Pp.
xvi, 265. ISBN 90-04-0901-3. $92.00. Reviewed by Marietta
Horster, Universität Rostock Word count: 1706 words The book is
the result of two workshops of an international research group
(historians, archaeologists, art historians, philologists)
studying towns and urbanism within the European Science
Foundation's project "Transformation of the Ancient World". The
subject "transformations of ideas and ideals of the town" is
treated in different ways: reflections of this process in
physical changes within cities; the reliability and significance
of different sources which express ideology and perception of
cities; and transformations of the economic, fiscal, legal,
administrative and social background which might have caused
changes in settlement patterns, the appearance and perception of
towns. Nine of the ten contributions of th