Andrew Wilson

Excavations at Aphrodisias in the 1980s revealed an extraordinary monumental water-basin (170 x 30m) in the centre of a colonnaded square, formerly called the 'South Agora'. A hypothesis that the complex was not an agora at all but 'the place of palms' mentioned by a sixth-century benefactor in an inscription on its Propylon was demonstrated during a five-year excavation project - The Mica and Ahmet Ertegun South Agora Pool Project. This volume publishes the rich results of this excavation and the long life of the complex from the first to the sixth century and beyond. The pool was surrounded by palm trees and Ionic stoas, in the manner of the urban parks or porticus familiar in early imperial Rome. The Aphrodisian example gives us an entirely new sense of what these porticus complexes were like.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

'Political technology' is a Russian term for the professional engineering of politics. It has turned Russian politics into theatre and propaganda, and metastasised to take over foreign policy and weaponise history. The war against Ukraine is one outcome. In the West, spin doctors and political consultants do more than influence media or run campaigns: they have also helped build parallel universes of alternative political reality. Hungary has used political technology to dismantle democracy. The BJP in India has used it to consolidate unprecedented power. Different countries learn from each other. Some types of political technology have become notorious, like troll farms or data mining; but there is now a global wholesale industry selling a range of manipulation techniques, from astroturfing to fake parties to propaganda apps. This book shows that 'political technology' is about much more than online disinformation: it is about whole new industries of political engineering.

'Political technology' is a Russian term for the professional engineering of politics. It has turned Russian politics into theatre and propaganda, and metastasised to take over foreign policy and weaponise history. The war against Ukraine is one outcome. In the West, spin doctors and political consultants do more than influence media or run campaigns: they have also helped build parallel universes of alternative political reality. Hungary has used political technology to dismantle democracy. The BJP in India has used it to consolidate unprecedented power. Different countries learn from each other. Some types of political technology have become notorious, like troll farms or data mining; but there is now a global wholesale industry selling a range of manipulation techniques, from astroturfing to fake parties to propaganda apps. This book shows that 'political technology' is about much more than online disinformation: it is about whole new industries of political engineering.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.