A reigning paradigm for contemporary studies of the ancient Mediterranean, connectivity is easy to spot. Nowhere is this truer than in the Roman world, where the dense material record reflects the culmination of entanglements emerging over centuries if not millennia. Although little doubt remains about the intensity of Roman connections, considerably less attention has been devoted to the implications — the ground-level human impact — of such sustained relations. How people viewed themselves and others, negotiated their places in society and constructed multifaceted identities in a cosmopolitan Rome remain fertile avenues of pursuit. One welcome addition is the present volume, which builds from a workshop series that drew together a talented group of largely UK-based scholars. The editors take as their starting point the general discomfort with the thorny and generations-old model of Romanization, for which no appealing alternatives have gained widespread traction among those studying identity in the context of Roman imperialism. The contributions refresh a broad approach that has seen intermittent application over the past generation: globalization.

Though the book opens (Part I) with insightful discourses (by the editors, followed by Hingley) on definitions of globalization and its incorporation into ancient studies over the past two decades, the editors consciously impose no rigid uniformity on what it means for Romanists to use the concept. From their baseline description of the term — ‘processes by which localities and people become increasingly interconnected and interdependent’ (11) — a productive ambiguity allows contributors to explore the breadth of case studies the Roman world offers. As becomes evident in the succeeding chapters, this approach yields a distinct advantage for a volume in which globalization's multifaceted vitality is more important to demonstrate than a strict coherence of interpretations.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the approaches — and even the level of commitment to globalization per se — vary among the contributors whose core chapters (Part II) take up certain themes that have already evoked considerable interest in this era of connectivity (economy by Morley, urbanism by Laurence and Trifilò, mobility by Isayev), and others that are only recently becoming ‘connected’ (consumption by Pitts, visual culture by Versluys, heritage by Witcher). Among the latter, Witcher powerfully merges the past and present of globalization, setting the heritage of Hadrian's Wall and the Roman frontiers more generally within a modern transnational context where the lessons of past cultural complexity can inform public discourse today over migration, identity and cultural transformation. Pitts draws consumption into the mix, offering an insightful reminder of how everyday meanings of objects — in this case provincial Roman fine ware — can be not only contextually dependent, but also informed by a host of entangled relationships extending across the Roman world. Even those topics traditionally well covered in other strands of connectivity scholarship here receive new energy and contextualization. For example, Morley offers a wide-ranging but sceptical inquiry into globalization and the Roman economy, but ultimately prefers approaches targeting institutions and networks that underscore the ‘interdependence and mutual reinforcement of the processes of political, social, economic and cultural change’ (66).

The consistent emphasis on agency and interdependence draws attention to the elephant in the room: network approaches. Networks are used metaphorically by nearly all contributors, but this increasingly sophisticated field for ancient studies is only addressed directly in one of the final chapters (by Hodos). Full consideration of network approaches here might have diluted the declared focus, but viewing the two in tandem in the introduction might also have helped to sharpen the globalization concept in light of the well-developed theoretical framework and flexible methodologies offered by networks. Hodos’ contribution and another final chapter by a sociologist (Nederveen Pieterse) offer diachronic and comparative perspectives (Part III) that identify both broadly analogous patterns across time and space and the particularities of the Roman world. Sommer's case study (in Part II), which situates Rome against a backdrop of Mediterranean connectivity in the first millennium b.c., is most productively read alongside these comprehensive views.

Integrating approaches from across disciplinary boundaries always presents challenges, which here the editors and authors choose to confront directly. Can globalization even be applied conceptually at scales that are technically sub-global? Significant energy is devoted to proving (thoroughly, to this reviewer's mind) the affirmative: globalization here is about thinking at larger scales and comparatively within the context of world (or at least Eurasian) history. How can we distinguish a constructive model of globalization against a backdrop of baggage in the popular modern consciousness and sometimes sloppy application of terms and concepts? Such perceptions are critiqued and terms are carefully defined throughout, but it is Pitts’ chapter that perhaps most vividly demonstrates the utility of tackling one prevalent theme within the modern globalization paradigm: mass consumption. Was there a meaningful space-time compression — often taken as a hallmark of today's globalized world — across the Roman Empire? Different contributors argue for greater or lesser importance, but if we think through globalization again alongside networks, it is not physical distance but social (i.e. network) distance across time and space that when compressed intensified Roman connectivity. Adding to an already complicated terminology should only be done with caution, but here the rewards of a well-honed globalization are shown to outweigh the risks.

The collection weaves together world history, connectivity and material culture — appropriately grouped in the volume's subtitle — through the productive lens of globalization, demonstrating the dynamic local adaptation and cultural fluidity that characterizes the best studies of modern cosmopolitanism. If connections and flows were integral factors in forming cultural identities among Rome's ‘world of strangers’ (to borrow from a subtitle of K. A. Appiah's Cosmopolitanism (2006)), such a growing toolbox offers not merely an updated and more post-colonially refined alternative to blunt analytical tools of the past (Romanization, diffusionism, etc.) but a framework that is flexible and measurable in the many varied cultural contexts that marked the Roman Empire.