Introduction / Gijs Tol and Tymon de Haas -- The economic, social and geographic context -- The benefits of market integration : five centuries of prosperity in Roman Italy / Willem Jongman -- The global roman countryside : connectivity and community / Robert Witcher -- The geography of Roman Italy and its implications for the development of rural economies / Tymon de Haas -- Arable production and society -- Something old, something new : social and economic developments in the countryside of Roman Italy between republic and empire / Alessandro Launaro -- The diversification and intensification of Italian agriculture : the complementary roles of the small and wealthy farmer / Geoffrey Kron -- Modelling crop-selection in Roman Italy : the economics of agricultural decision making in a globalizing economy / Frits Heinrich -- Peasant agricultural strategies in southern Tuscany : convertible agriculture and the importance of pasture / Kim Bowes, Anna Maria Mercuri, Eleonora Rattigheri, Rossella Rinaldi, Antonia Arnoldus-Huyzendveld, Mariaelena Ghisleni, Cam Grey, Michael MacKinnon and Emanuele Vaccaro -- Rural crafts -- Issues in the study of rural craft production in Roman Italy / J. Theodore Pena -- Italic sigillata production and trade in rural central Italy : new data from the project "excavating the Roman peasant" / Emanuele Vaccaro, Claudio Capelli and Mariaelena Ghisleni -- Crafts and trade in minor settlements in north and central Italy : reflections on an ongoing research project / Sara Santoro -- Commercialisation -- Wine and amphorae in campania in the hellenistic age : the case of Ischia / Gloria Olcese -- Rural, urban and suburban communities and their economic interconnectivity in coastal north Etruria (2nd century BC-2nd century AD) / Marinella Pasquinucci and Simonetta Menchelli -- The role of overseas export and local consumption demand in the development of viticulture in central-Adriatic Italy (200 BC-AD 150) : the case of the Ager Potentinus and the wider Potenza Valley / Dimitri Van Limbergen, Patrick Monsieur and Frank Vermeulen -- From surface find to consumption trend : a ceramic perspective on the economic history of the Pontine Region (Lazio, central Italy) in the Roman period / Gijs Tol -- Wood and charcoal for Rome: towards an understanding of ancient regional fuel economics / Robyn Veal -- Where were the coins we find actually used? / Michael Crawford -- Conclusions -- Roman economic practice across time and space : an outside perspective / Gary M. Feinman -- Landscape archaeology in Italy : past questions, current state and future directions / Peter Attema -- Bibliography -- Index.