The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome

In The Ancient City, Fustel de Coulanges hands us the skeleton key unlocking classical civilization: the Indo-European domestic cult. With a formidable command of primary sources, he shows this archaic religion to be the engine behind the social developments of the ancient world from remote pre-history down to late antiquity. This is the story of the descent of the traditional social order par excellence into something approximating liberalism, and it has never been better told, nor more fully explained.

In his foreword, Dennis Bouvard views The Ancient City through the lens of generative anthropology, leveraging the originary hypothesis of Eric Gans to explain the work in terms of shared origins, sacrality, and the belief in a center. In so doing, he points the way to a post-liberal understanding of our own social order, informed by the imperative order described by Fustel.

As with all Imperium Press titles, this edition is suitable for lay or academic use, with an extensive bibliography and index. This is now the definitive edition of a long overlooked work with the potential to change the trajectory of the dissident right.