Roman Britain

Roman Britain is the 1st volume of a consecutive guide to the development of English Society from the Roman invasion to the outbreak of WWI. Each volume is written by a specialist. Each decides what is significant. All seek to emphasize the sense of period. While some parallels are inevitable, the business of discovering comparison & conclusion, & of adapting the lessons of history, is left, for the most part, to the reader.
This book provides a general picture of the Roman province of Britain during the period from AD 43 until the 5th century. It doesn't attempt to furnish a continuous historical account, for which neither the written sources nor the archeological material provide enough evidence. The nearest approach to this is in the description of the military subjugation & organization of the province, dealt with here in considerable detail in an attempt to relate it to general policy, & to give a closer account of its changes than is usually attempted. The towns are considered analytically, with emphasis on their social function in the several communities of which they were the centres, & upon their connexions both with the Roman state & the native tribe, & attention is given to the smaller centres both in civil & military areas. Religious cults, their buildings & their artistic expression are brought into relation with the provincial social order. Commerce & the countryside are the themes of other chapters, & the development of provincial resources in agriculture & raw products is described. The book is illustrated by 8 pages of plates. Dr Ian A. Richmond is professor of the Archeology of the Roman Empire at Oxford University. He was educated at Ruthin School & Corpus Christi College, Oxford, & was a Craven Fellow & Goldsmith's Senior Student of the University, becoming a lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast. He was also Director of the British School at Rome, where he wrote a standard work upon the Imperial City Wall. He's a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London & of the British Academy, a Royal Commissioner of Ancient Monuments to England & Scotland, & a Trustee of the Nat'l Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. He has excavated widely upon Hadrian's Wall & many other Romano-British military sites.