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Ancient Rome was one of the greatest cities of the pre-industrial era. Like other such great cities, it has often been deemed parasitic, a drain on the resources of the society that supported it. Rome's huge population was maintained not by trade or manufacture but by the taxes and rents of the empire. It was the archetypal 'consumer city'. However, such a label does not do full justice to the impact of the city on its hinterland. This book examines the historiography of the consumer city model and reappraises the relationship between Rome and Italy. Drawing on archaeological work and comparative evidence, the author shows how the growth of the city can be seen as the major influence on the development of the Italian economy in this period as its demands for food and migrants promoted changes in agriculture, marketing systems and urbanisation throughout the peninsula.

Sor Mar’a de Agreda (1602-65) was a Spanish nun and visionary who is best known as the author of the widely read biography of the Virgin Mary, The Mystical City of God, and as the missionary who "bilocated" to the American Southwest, reportedly appearing to Indians there without ever leaving Spain. Her role as advisor to King Philip IV contributed further to her legend. Clark Colahan now offers the first major study of Sor Mar’a's writings, including translations of two previously unpublished works: Face of the Earth and Map of the Spheres and the first half of her Report to Father Manero, in which she reflects on her bilocation.

An illustrated treatise on a book of hours created between 1469 and 1473 in Ferrara, Italy.

Transatlantic Mysteries presents a comparative study that brings together authors Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán —from two specific political contexts: post-1968 Mexico and post-Franco Spain— who both work in one specific genre—'noir' detective fiction. In this so called age of globalization, Spain and Mexico have witnessed an explosion in the production of 'noir' detective fiction which these authors choose purposefully in order to infiltrate the market with formulaic 'popular' literature while simultaneously critiquing the effects of the neoliberal strategies embraced by their countries. By locating themselves at the crossroads where literature meets the market, they not only underscore the effects of capital on literary and cultural production but also explore the possibility for their writing to resist the influences of capital and question the role of an intellectual in an era of globalization. At the core of their writing Taibo and Vázquez Montalbán examine the revolutionary possibilities of literature and popular culture to offer a new kind of Marxist project that revitalizes the Left by redefining the role of socially engaged literature in a globalized landscape.