Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece

This new work from Thomas Gallant provides a highly original analysis of the ancient Greek domestic economy. The nature of their environment together with only rudimentary technology caused the Greek peasants to develop an extensive but delicate web of risk-management strategies. The author details these strategies alongside the key adaptive measures by which the ancient Greeks coped with major fluctuations in food production and supply. As a whole, the book makes a major contribution to the perennial debate about how peasants secure the basic conditions of material subsistence.

Introduction - the domestic economy and subsistence risk Ancient households and their life cycle Adaptive measures in the agricultural system Structural constraints and the household vulnerability cycle Response strategies to food shortage - household self-help systems "With a little help from my friends" - interpersonal risk-buffering behaviour The domestic economy and the dialectic of subsistence risk.