"A wide survey over four millennia is possible for quarrying tools and techniques because of their simplicity and long-lived traditions. The chief contribution of the Romans was their organisation of the stone trade by mass production, standardisation and long-distance transport. Indeed, in post-Roman Europe, especially in Britain, it was the excellence of Roman building stone which allowed so much subsequent 'quarrying' in the buildings themselves. One exception in Saxon times was the quarry for Bradford-on-Avon's church. With the 12th-century spurt in church building activity, however, natural stone quarries once more became common and distribution methods familiar to the Roman world re-emerged." - COPAC.

Egypt, with its ever-growing wealth of evidence from the papyri, has in recent decades been one of the liveliest areas of scholarship on the later Roman Empire. This volume collects two dozen articles on the social, economic, and administrative history of Egypt by Roger Bagnall, whose book 'Egypt in Late Antiquity' has helped to bring this region and this evidence into the mainstream of historical debate. In these studies some of the main themes of his work are visible, in particular attempts to explore the possibilities for quantifying not only questions like the burden of taxation or the distribution of land-ownership, but more tantalizing and controversial matters like the rate at which the population of Egypt was Christianized.

After World War II, Western Europe became closely linked to the United States--economically through a variety of associations within the Atlantic Community, and militarily through NATO. This volume stresses the strategic importance of Western Europe for the United States. It provides detailed surveys of the background and preparedness of the NATO defense forces and the forces of Austria, Switzerland, and other countries of strategic importance. Each chapter provides a general outline of military developments since 1945, including such topics as: the relationship between armed forces and society; recruitment practices; armaments; organization; relations with NATO; and future projections. The authoritative series of descriptive, historical, and analytical essays in this volume makes it an essential resource for defense specialists, policymakers, and scholars of Western Europe.