Governmental Intervention in Foreign Trade in Archaic and Classical Greece

Bissa (U. of Wales, UK) focuses on two main topics concerning the economic life of archaic and classical Greece: the relative importance of trade as a part of exchange in the politically fragmented world of Greece and the role of the state in foreign trade. He examines trade in the commodities of gold, silver, timber, and grain. Although greatly influenced by Morris Finley's Ancient Economy, he departs from that work in arguing that government played a significant role in the production, import, and export of commodities and identifying three interlocking models of state intervention and involvement corresponding to the three types of polity prominent in the Greek world. He also argues that while the polis did not play the same role in trade as the modern state, this was due more to the nature of the polity than from any lack of understanding of the economic rules of trade. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Errietta M.A. Bissa, Ph.D. (2008) in Ancient History, University of London, is a lecturer at the University of Wales, Lampeter.