I, like /u/ryhntyntyn don't have either of these on hand and I read them years ago, but I'm fairly comfortable with my memory of the broad points of the argument.

Holland presents the traditional narrative that almost all surviving Roman sources endorse: Rome's overseas empire required decades of military commitments that took the citizen soldier away from their farms for years, bankrupt their families, and provided access to an incredible number of slaves. The wealthy bought up the land and worked it with slaves, while the poor moved to Rome where they became a resource for unscrupulous politicians to manipulate the assemblies.

Rosenstein used archeology and comparative evidence from better documented agrarian societies to show 1) small farms did not vanish as you would expect if the farming system became industrial as the sources describe, and 2) women are perfectly capable of running farms on their own, and in fact usually do. He attributes the lack of manpower to the long, difficult, and bloody wars in Spain that produced little by way of loot for the soldiers. Military service was just not attractive.

The ancient sources tend to be Augustan or later (Appian, Plutarch), and that narrative about the urban poor is useful for the Senatorial class to explain how Rome transitioned to autocracy. It also allows the wealthy to demonize the poor - they are worthless rascals who don't contribute to the state and are a legitimate liability.

I'm not sure whether I believe Rosenstein. He has good evidence and the traditional narrative is ideologically useful, but it's so firmly embedded in the surviving sources that I'm very uncomfortable throwing it out. If I knew of at least some ancient voices expressing this idea of unpopular wars gutting participation in the military I would feel better about it.

Holland, on the other hand, is a hack who is really writing a critique of American imperialism after 9/11 dressed up as Roman history, and I really wish people would stop paying him attention.

I hope you get an answer, as having neither to hand at the moment (Our Borrowing library is pick up only and has a weeks turn around) I would be really interested. We discussed this when I was at college back in the Dark Ages.

The Romans themselves believed this, at least partially, the crisis the involved and ended the Gracchi brothers was based in the problems of land distributuion and land reform either percieved or existing.

But, the last quarter century of Archaeological research have not yielded the Latifundia one would expect to find of the period. What did Rosenstein actually argue to show that that the Crisis in land distrubution was false?