This work is one of the most recent to question the archaeological impact of the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’ on a provincial and inter-provincial level, a trend sparked by Christian Witschel's Krise – Rezession – Stagnation? (1999). In the present volume, the editors bring together seventeen essays addressing the issue from an archaeological perspective. The aim is to present a series of papers that question whether a perceived crisis negatively affected the urban centres of Hispania, or if a gradual change occurred in the way people perceived and used public spaces from the second to fourth centuries (2). Although Hispania is the stated focus of the book, just over half of the essays focus on the region. The remaining papers range as far afield as Britannia, Gaul, Germania and Italia.

To address the question at hand, the editors present the studies in three main sections. ‘Histoires Provinciales’ (9–102) contains the first five essays. These include both regional and provincial studies of public spaces. ‘Trajectoires Singulières’ (105–251), by far the largest section, contains eight essays that examine individual case studies. Three papers comprise ‘Destinées Transverales’ (255–307), that look at changes in the use of specific public spaces. The book finishes with a concluding essay of general comments.

In ‘Histoires Provinciales’, the focus shifts away from Hispania. Nonetheless, these general studies of the western provinces help frame Hispania within its larger regional context. Pichon looks at the fora of western Gallia Belgica, concluding that the fortification of these spaces in the late third century and their disuse in the fourth were the result of the militarization of the province and a change in the expression of civic life (31). Macias Solé suggests that the change and decline of civic spaces in settlements of the Conventus Tarraconensis was a gradual process that took place from the second to fourth centuries (42). Heijmans notes that religious and political spaces stayed in use in Gallia Narbonensis during the period, but spaces of leisure and entertainment did not. This is attributed to the shift of trade routes and manufacturing centres to northern Gaul in the late first century (61). Esmonde Cleary points out that it is important to identify changes in the use of civic spaces, rather than simply ‘decline’ (64–5). Further, he attributes the absence of the same level of construction of civic spaces in Britain as in the Mediterranean in part to a lower level of euergetism (81). Finally, Cavilieri states that civic spaces in the Cisalpine region of Italy continued to function into the fourth century (102).

‘Trajectoires Singulières’ attempts to drill down into the issue of crisis on a local level by examining civic spaces on an individual basis. The focus of this section is largely on Hispania. Morín de Pablos and Ribera i Lacomba employ comparative study of the urban centres of Valentia and Ercavica. Guilabert Mas, Olcina Doménech and Tendero Porras examine Lucentum; Quevedo and Ramall Asenio, Carthago Nova; Garciá Villaba, Rascón Marqués and Sánchez Montes, Complutum; García Villaba and Sáenz Preciadio, Bilbilis; and finally Pérez González, Illaregui Gómez and Arribas Lobo, Tiermes. The general conclusions reached by these studies are that larger cities began a process of decline in the late second century that culminated in changes in the use of public spaces in the fourth. Smaller towns, on the other hand, largely experienced abandonment during this period. Explanations largely centre on economic decline. Geological factors, however, such as earthquakes, are also taken into account. In addition to the studies of Hispania, Kasprzyk looks at Augustodunum and Hufschmid examines Augusta Raurica.

‘Destinées Transversales’, the shortest of the three sections, focuses mainly on Hispania. Borlenghi's study of the campus in the Western Empire finds that while the campus flourished as a multi-faceted public space, by the fourth century it had largely been overtaken by public buildings (271). Brassous, on the other hand, finds that buildings for public spectacles in Hispania did not go out of use, with the circus being repaired at Mirobriga and Corduba, and a circus being constructed de novo at Olisippo in the third century (288). Finally, Blasco states that most public spaces in Hispania saw a transition during the third century, being reused for both private dwellings and industry (307).

It should be said that this volume sets out what it intends to do, which is address the issue of crisis or transition over the second through fourth centuries. Arce notes in the concluding remarks that ‘the cities of the fourth century in Hispania were certainly different from those of the second century, but were not completely destroyed’ (323). While this is true for the studies therein, the focus of papers concerning Hispania is on the western half of the peninsula. There is also a tendency to attribute destruction and/or demolition layers to historic events, such as Frankish, Alamannic and Mauric raids (31, 119, 177) or the siege of Augustodunum by Victorinus (143). In general, the papers hold to interpreting the archaeological narrative on its own merits rather than the literary record, which historically has been a problem in third-century studies. This book may not be the final word in debating the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’; it is, however, an important addition that summarizes the current state of archaeological research for much of Hispania's urban centres during this critical and often under-studied period of Roman history.