Joseph Manning

Joseph Manning is a Professor in both the Departments of Classics and History at Yale University, and a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School. He holds the William K. and Marilyn Milton Simpson Professorship in Classics. His research focuses on Hellenistic history, particularly the legal and economic history of Ptolemaic Egypt, governance, and the integration of paleoclimatology into ancient economic studies. He is a key member of interdisciplinary teams studying volcanic impacts on Nile hydrology and Mediterranean climate history.

Education: BA (1981, Ohio State University), AM and PhD (1992, University of Chicago). Before Yale, he taught at Stanford University and Princeton University.

Research interests include Papyrology, socio-economic institutions in antiquity, and applying economic sociology to ancient history. Current projects explore climatic drivers of societal change in Egypt and the Mediterranean, extending from the Ptolemaic period through Late Antiquity. Manning co-edits Law and Society in Egypt and contributes to Seshat: Global History Databank.

His articles analyze climate-ancient society interactions, economic history, and legal systems. Collaborative work with climatologists highlights interdisciplinary approaches to historical inquiry.

Labs/Teams: Part of Yale’s Program in Economic History and climate research teams investigating volcanic eruptions’ impacts on Nile dynamics and regional stability.