Books › Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
1772 pages
A monumental, visual journey across the landscapes of antiquity that turns abstract history into tangible, meticulously charted geography.
What it feels like
Opening this monumental atlas feels like stepping into a time machine built of ink and topography. It is not a book you read from cover to cover, but rather a vast, meandering landscape you explore at your own pace, tracing the ancient coastlines, forgotten trade routes, and imperial borders of the Greco-Roman world. The mood is one of expansive, quiet awe, the kind found in hushed university libraries and dusty archaeological archives. While devoid of traditional narrative prose, its meticulous cartography speaks volumes, offering a deeply immersive, tactile connection to antiquity. It will absolutely delight classicists, map lovers, and history enthusiasts who crave the physical context behind the great epics and historical accounts of the ancient Mediterranean.
- Mood
- expansive
- immersive
- timeless
- awe-inspiring
- Tone
- scholarly
- authoritative
- meticulous
- objective
- Pace
- meandering
- Themes
- the scale of antiquity · mapping the past · geographical determinism · historical interconnectedness
- The writing
- Visual and cartographic rather than narrative, characterized by rigorous academic precision and meticulous labeling.
- The arc
- Moves from an overwhelming sense of vast historical scale to an intimate, grounded connection with the physical reality of the ancient world.
- Who it's for
- Devoted classicists, map enthusiasts, and history buffs who want to trace the exact routes of ancient legions and philosophers.
About the book
The Barrington Atlas, created by the Classical Atlas Project (now, the Ancient World Mapping Center), is a reference work of permanent value. It has an exceptionally broad appeal to everyone worldwide with an interest in ancient Greeks and Romans, the lands they penetrated, and the peoples and cultures they encountered in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.
In 99 full-color maps spread over 175 pages, the Barrington Atlas re-creates the entire world of the Greeks and Romans from the British Isles to the Indian subcontinent and deep into North Africa. It spans the territory of more than 75 modern countries. Its large format (13 1/4 x 18 in. or 33.7 x 46.4 cm) has been custom-designed by the leading cartographic supplier, MapQuest.com, Inc., and is unrivaled for range, clarity, and detail. Over 70 experts, aided by an equal number of consultants, have worked from satellite-generated aeronautical charts to return the modern landscape to its ancient appearance, and to mark ancient names and features in accordance with the most up-to-date historical scholarship and archaeological discoveries. Chronologically, the Barrington Atlas spans archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, and no more than two standard scales (1:500,000 and 1:1,000,000) are used to represent most regions.
Since the 1870s, all attempts to map the classical world comprehensively have failed. The Barrington Atlas has finally achieved that elusive and challenging goal. It began in 1988 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, under the direction of the distinguished ancient historian Richard Talbert, and has been developed with approximately $4.5 million in funding support.
The resulting Barrington Atlas is a reference work of permanent value. It has an exceptionally broad appeal to everyone worldwide with an interest in the ancient Greeks and Romans, the lands they penetrated, and the peoples and cultures they encountered in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Scholars and libraries should find it essential. It is also for students, travelers, lovers of fine cartography, and anyone eager to retrace Alexander’s eastward marches, cross the Alps with Hannibal, traverse the Eastern Mediterranean with St. Paul, or ponder the roads, aqueducts, and defense works of the Roman Empire. For the new millennium the Barrington Atlas brings the ancient past back to life in an unforgettably vivid and inspiring way.
Description from Open Library.
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