Books by Joe (J.G.) Manning
The monograph summarizes where the study of the "ancient economy" has been, where it is and where... more The monograph summarizes where the study of the "ancient economy" has been, where it is and where it should be going, highlighting theory and important new trends that scientific research has stimulated.
This volume publishes, for the first time, approximately fifty late Egyptian texts from the Suzu... more This volume publishes, for the first time, approximately fifty late Egyptian texts from the Suzuki collection held at Tokai University, Japan. The project is a result of a five-year collaboration between Tokai University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, The University of Michigan, and the Staatliche Museum zu Berlin. The texts were purchased by Professor Suzuki mainly in the early 1960s from various dealers in Cairo. The bulk of the collection, now housed in the Department of Asian Civilization, School of Letters at Tokai University as part of the Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (AENET), consists of early demotic texts. There is also one late hieratic text concerned with temple land, and a few small Greek fragments from the Byzantine period. The texts published here present an interesting range of document types, a range of demotic handwriting, and a few surprises. Among the more interesting are a rare word list and a new mythological narrative.
Edited volume with John J. Collins
Papers by Joe (J.G.) Manning
Handbook of the Septuagint, Vol. 4, 2024
An overview of the Ptolemaic and early Roman state in Egypt
Annales, 2024
History as a discipline finds itself in a transitional situation. On the one hand, new kinds of e... more History as a discipline finds itself in a transitional situation. On the one hand, new kinds of evidence are available, but since these did not form part of their training, many historians feel uncomfortable working with data derived from palynology, dendrology, glaciology, osteology, archaeogenetics, and so on. On the other hand, the current global crisis, including unprecedented climate change, ecosystem disturbance, and the (not unrelated) emergence of highly transmissible pathogenic diseases, has caused us to look more generally to the past for parallels, meaning, and guidance. Practitioners from other disciplines-notably medical professionals, environmental scientists, and economists-have taken over this task, relaying "historical lessons" to the public. Historians are too often little involved in the debates about current challenges and the future of the planet that ensue, debates that capture public attention and help to shape our future. * This article was first published in French as "L'émergence d'une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire. Une approche conjointe de l'Holocène tardif," Annales
Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East, 2016
Nature communications, Oct 17, 2017
Volcanic eruptions provide tests of human and natural system sensitivity to abrupt shocks because... more Volcanic eruptions provide tests of human and natural system sensitivity to abrupt shocks because their repeated occurrence allows the identification of systematic relationships in the presence of random variability. Here we show a suppression of Nile summer flooding via the radiative and dynamical impacts of explosive volcanism on the African monsoon, using climate model output, ice-core-based volcanic forcing data, Nilometer measurements, and ancient Egyptian writings. We then examine the response of Ptolemaic Egypt (305-30 BCE), one of the best-documented ancient superpowers, to volcanically induced Nile suppression. Eruptions are associated with revolt onset against elite rule, and the cessation of Ptolemaic state warfare with their great rival, the Seleukid Empire. Eruptions are also followed by socioeconomic stress with increased hereditary land sales, and the issuance of priestly decrees to reinforce elite authority. Ptolemaic vulnerability to volcanic eruptions offers a caut...
Climate of the Past, 2022
The Ptolemaic era (305-30BCE) represents an important period of Ancient Egyptian history known fo... more The Ptolemaic era (305-30BCE) represents an important period of Ancient Egyptian history known for East Asian) experienced suppression of rainfall >1 mm/day during the monsoon (JJAS) season averaged for 2 years after each eruption. A substantial suppression of north African and Indian summer monsoon over the Nile River headwater region vigorously affects the river flow in the catchment and river discharge. River mass flow consecutively decreases by up to more than 30% relative to an unperturbed from volcanoes annual mean flow for 2 years after the tropical eruption. A moderate decrease of up to 15-20% is produced after each of the remaining eruptions. These results show that the first eruption produces a strong hydroclimate response, and the following 3 eruptions prolonged the drying conditions. These results also support the contention that the observed association between ice-core-based signals of explosive volcanism and the hydroclimatic impact of these eruptions during the Ptolemy era, including the suppression of the critical for agriculture Nile summer flooding.
Annales HSS, 2022
With the efflorescence of palaeoscientific approaches to the past, historians have been confronte... more With the efflorescence of palaeoscientific approaches to the past, historians have been confronted with a wealth of new evidence on both human and natural phenomena, from human disease and migration through to landscape change and climate. These new data require a rewriting of our narratives of the past, questioning what constitutes an authoritative historical source and who is entitled to recount history to contemporary societies. Humanities-based historical inquiry must embrace this new evidence, but to do so historians need to engage with it in a critical manner, just as they engage critically with textual and material sources. This article highlights the most vital methodological issues, ranging from the spatiotemporal scales and heterogeneity of the new evidence to the new roles attributed to quantitative methods and the place of scientific data in narrative construction. It considers areas of study where the palaeosciences have “intruded” into fields and subjects previously reserved for historians, especially socioeconomic, climate, and environmental history. The authors argue that active engagement with new approaches is urgently needed if historians want to contribute to our evolving understanding of the challenges of the Anthropocene.
The Journal of Economic History, 2019
Uploads
Books by Joe (J.G.) Manning
Papers by Joe (J.G.) Manning
Seminar
Venue: Room 349, Third Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Thursday, October 6, 4:30 PM
please write to me for a pdf copy
Appearing in TOPOI 20.
"Climate of the past and societal responses to environmental changes."
The debate
Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. The decline and even collapse of complex societies in the Americas, Africa and the Eurasian continent has been related to catastrophic shifts in temperature and precipitation. Other scholars, however, see climate change as potentially hastening endogenous processes of political, economic and demographic decline, but argue that complex societies did not fall victim to climate alone. In other words, a debate has arisen concerning the nature and scope of climatic forces on human society and the extent of resilience within complex societies to deal with adverse changes in natural circumstances. The debate so far has shown that the role of long-term climate change and short-term climatic events in the history of mankind can no longer be denied. At the same time, the realization has also emerged that further study must go beyond global patterns and general answers. Diversity governs both climate change and human society. Hence, furthering our understanding of the role of climate in human history requires complex theories that combine on the one hand recent paleoclimatic models that recognize the high extent of temporal and spatial variation and, on the other, models of societal change that allow for the complexity of societal response to internal and external forces.
The Challenge
Our conference will focus on the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, which all have in common a sparsity of empirical data that limits our understanding of the endogenous and exogenous variables responsible for societal change and our ability to empirically establish the causal links between them. Lacking precise and secure historic data on weather, harvests, prices, population, health and mortality, historical reconstructions run the risk of being overwhelmed by impressive quantities of long-term paleoclimatic proxy-data. Due to the sparsity of societal data, early economies may appear to be more subjected to environmental forces than later pre-industrial societies. The challenge is to bring both perspectives together in models that allow an evenly balanced analysis of the link between climate and society.