James Macksoud

Ph.D., Stanford University (2025)
M.A., Stanford University (2022)
M.Phil., University of Cambridge (2017)
B.A., Columbia University (2015)

James Macksoud is a Roman historian whose research broadly concerns the political and economic organizations and institutions which structured state and society in the Ancient Mediterranean. Currently, his primary work examines the public finances and fiscal regimes of local governments within the early Roman Empire and demonstrates that the financial resources mobilized by the cities were substantial and that the activities of local authorities are profitably integrated into our assessment of the interests and infrastructural power of government during the principate. Some of his other ongoing research projects investigate capital depreciation and the maintenance of Roman urban infrastructure, the organizational isomorphism of Greco-Roman private associations, and the application of new-institutionalist theories – as well as comparative, quantitative, and digital humanities approaches – to the study of ancient history.