Classics and History Expert - Ian Morris

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Ian Morris
Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor in Classics and Professor in History

Biography

Ian Morris is interested in understanding why the west has dominated the earth for the last few centuries. He began his career as an archaeologist and historian of ancient Greece, studying early texts and excavating sites around the Mediterranean Sea, but in recent years he has moved toward larger-scale questions and an evolutionary approach to world history. He has written or edited eleven books. The most recent, Why the West Rules … For Now, asks how geography and natural resources have shaped the distribution of wealth and power around the world across the last 20,000 years and how they will shape our future. Morris discussed this subejct in a February 2012 lecture entitled "Why the West Rules - For Now."  Morris’ ongoing projects include a book on slavery and globalization, a study of western civilization co-authored with historian Niall Ferguson of Harvard University, and a volume of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the World.

From 2000 through 2006 Professor Morris directed Stanford University’s excavation at Monte Polizzo, a native Sicilian town of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. As well as suggesting new ways of thinking about how indigenous peoples responded to ancient Greek colonialism, the project’s finds have also opened up new perspectives on the similarities and differences between periods of imperial expansion in ancient to modern times.

Morris came to Stanford from the University of Chicago in 1995, and since then has served as Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Chair of the Classics Department, and Director of the Social Science History Institute. He also founded and has directed the Stanford Archaeology Center. His teaching includes classes on world history, ancient Greece, slavery, and archaeology. He has appeared on numerous television shows and his prizes and awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Key Works

  • Why the West Rules … For Now. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, forthcoming 2010.
  • The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. With Walter Scheidel. Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • The Greeks: History, Culture, Society. With Barry Powell. Prentice-Hall, 2005. 2nd ed., 2009.
  • The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Ed., with Walter Scheidel and Richard Saller. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • The Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models. Ed. with Joe Manning. Stanford University Press, 2005.
  • Archaeology as Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. (Spanish translation: 2007.)
  • Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges. Ed. with Kurt Raaflaub and David Castriota. Kendall Hunt Pub. Co., 1997.
  • A New Companion to Homer.  Ed. with Barry Powell. Brill Academic Publishers, 1997.
  • Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. Ed. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  • Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, 1992. (Greek translation: University of Kriti Press, 1997.)
  • Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • List of working papers

 

Prof. Morris in the News

 

 
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