Epilogue: The Potentials of a New Ancient Economic History

This afterword offers some closing thoughts on the contributions and response papers, highlighting the positives and potentials that have arisen for further study. In particular, the contributors collectively promote an ancient economic history that is open to a wide diversity of methods and closely engaged with broader currents in economics and historical studies. We suggest that, rather than focusing on aggregate growth, a key item for a moral ancient economic history will be to develop tools to inform more measured approaches sensitive to both the benefits and costs of past economic behavior.