"Romanization has been represented as a simple progression from barbarism to civilization. Roman forms in architecture, coinage, language and literature came to dominate the world from Britain to Syria. Hingley argues for a more complex and nuanced view in which Roman models provided the means for provincial elites to articulate their own concerns, while also enabling some less influential people to stress new identities." Most work that has been done in this area has concentrated on specific areas or provinces. Hingley draws together the threads in a sophisticated theoretical framework that spans the whole Roman empire, and provokes intriguing comparisons with modern discussions of globalization and resistance to contemporary cultural domination.