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Famous People of China (China: The Emerging Superpower)
By Yan Liao. 2013
Over the centuries, Chinese civilization has produced many important inventions and innovations, including paper, printing, porcelain, the magnetic compass, and…
gunpowder. Similarly, China has produced a host of exceptional and accomplished individuals in all fields of human endeavor. Famous People of China profiles a handful of remarkable figures from China's long history. Among the intriguing people included in this volume are Confucius, China's most influential philosopher; the emperor Qin Shihuang, who unified China and built the Great Wall; the beloved poet Su Dongpo; and Zheng He, whose epic seagoing expeditions predated the famous Spanish and Portuguese voyages of exploration by more than half a century.The People of China (China: The Emerging Superpower)
By Shu Shin Luh. 2013
About 92 percent of China's 1.35 billion people come from the same ethnic group, the Han, who have dominated Chinese…
culture for more than 2,000 years. Nevertheless, China is by no means a homogeneous nation. In fact, China's government officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups, and at times their integration into Chinese society has presented difficult challenges for Beijing. The People of China presents an in-depth look at the largest ethnic groups in the world's most populous country. It examines each group's history, customs, beliefs, and aspirations--in the process revealing the complexities, and the politics, of ethnic identity in the People's Republic of China.The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila
By Michael Maas. 2015
This book examines the age of Attila, roughly the fifth century CE, an era in which western Eurasia experienced significant…
geopolitical and cultural changes. The Roman Empire collapsed in western Europe, replaced by new 'barbarian' kingdoms, but it continued in Christian Byzantine guise in the eastern Mediterranean. New states and peoples changed the face of northern Europe, while in Iran, the Sasanian Empire developed new theories of power and government. At the same time, the great Eurasian steppe became a permanent presence in the European world. This book treats Attila, the notorious king of the Huns, as both an agent of change and a symbol of the wreck of the old world order.Illyricum in Roman Politics 229 BC-AD 68
By Danijel Dzino. 2010
Illyricum, in the western Balkan peninsula, was a strategically important area of the Roman Empire where the process of Roman…
imperialism began early and lasted for several centuries. Dzino here examines Roman political conduct in Illyricum; the development of Illyricum in Roman political discourse; and the beginning of the process that would integrate Illyricum into the Roman Empire and wider networks of the Mediterranean world. In addition, he also explores the different narrative histories, from the romanocentric narrative of power and Roman military conquest, which dominate the available sources, to other, earlier scholarly interpretations of events.Asceticism In The Graeco-Roman World
By Richard Finn. 2009
Asceticism deploys abstention, self-control, and self-denial, to order oneself or a community in relation to the divine. Both its practices…
and the cultural ideals they expressed were important to pagans, Jews, Christians of different kinds, and Manichees. Richard Finn presents for the first time a combined study of the major ascetic traditions, which have been previously misunderstood by being studied separately. He examines how people abstained from food, drink, sexual relations, sleep, and wealth; what they meant by their behaviour; and how they influenced others in the Graeco-Roman world. Against this background, the book charts the rise of monasticism in Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa, assessing the crucial role played by the third-century exegete, Origen, and asks why monasticism developed so variously in different regions.Athens, Thrace, and the Shaping of Athenian Leadership
By Matthew A. Sears. 2013
From the mid-sixth to the mid-fourth century BCE a nexus of connections to Thrace defined the careers of several of…
Athens' most prominent figures, including Pisistratus, Miltiades, Alcibiades, and Iphicrates. This book explores the importance of Thrace to these individuals and its resulting significance in the political, cultural, and social history of Athens. Thrace was vitally important for Athens thanks to its natural resources and access to strategic waterways, which were essential to a maritime empire, and connections to the area conferred wealth and military influence on certain Athenians and offered them a refuge if they faced political persecution at home. However, Thrace's importance to prominent individuals transcended politics: its culture was also an important draw. Thrace was a world free of Athenian political, social, and cultural constraints - one that bore a striking resemblance to the world of Homeric epic.Lycurgan Athens and the Making of Classical Tragedy
By Johanna Hanink. 2014
Through a series of interdisciplinary studies this book argues that the Athenians themselves invented the notion of 'classical' tragedy just…
a few generations after the city's defeat in the Peloponnesian War. In the third quarter of the fourth century BC, and specifically during the 'Lycurgan Era' (338-322 BC), a number of measures were taken in Athens to affirm to the Greek world that the achievement of tragedy was owed to the unique character of the city. By means of rhetoric, architecture, inscriptions, statues, archives and even legislation, the 'classical' tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) and their plays came to be presented as both the products and vital embodiments of an idealised Athenian past. This study marks the first account of Athens' invention of its own theatrical heritage and sheds new light upon the interaction between the city's literary and political history.Catullus, Cicero, and a Society of Patrons
By Sarah Culpepper Stroup. 1970
This is a study of the emergence, development, and florescence of a distinctly 'late Republican' socio-textual culture as recorded in…
the writings of this period's two most influential authors, Catullus and Cicero. It reveals a multi-faceted textual - rather than more traditionally-defined 'literary' - world that both defines the intellectual life of the late Republic, and lays the foundations for those authors of the Principate and Empire who identified this period as their literary source and inspiration. By first questioning, and then rejecting, the traditional polarisation of Catullus and Cicero, and by broadening the scope of late Republican socio-literary studies to include intersections of language, social practice, and textual materiality, this book presents a fresh picture of both the socio-textual world of the late Republic and the primary authors through whom this world would gain renown.The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age
By Assaf Yasur-Landau. 2010
Assaf Yasur-Landau examines the early history of the biblical Philistines who were among the 'Sea Peoples' who migrated from the…
Aegean area to the Levant during the early twelfth century BC. Creating an archaeological narrative of the migration of the Philistines, he combines an innovative theoretical framework on the archaeology of migration with new data from excavations in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel and thereby reconstructs the social history of the Aegean migration to the southern Levant. The author follows the story of the migrants from the conditions that caused the Philistines to leave their Aegean homes, to their movement eastward along the sea and land routes, to their formation of a migrant society in Philistia and their interaction with local populations in the Levant. Based on the most up-to-date evidence, this book offers a new and fresh understanding of the arrival of the Philistines in the Levant.Adoption in the Roman World
By Hugh Lindsay. 2009
Adoption in other cultures and other times provides a background to understanding the operation of adoption in the Roman worlds.…
This book considers the relationship of adoption to kinship structures in the Greek and Roman world. It considers the procedures for adoption followed by a separate analysis of testamentary cases, and the impact of adoption on nomenclature. The impact of adoption on inheritance arrangements is considered, including an account of how the families of freedmen were affected. Its use as a mode of succession at Rome is detailed, and this helps to understand the anxiety of childless Romans to procure a son through adoption, rather than simply to nominate heirs in their wills. The strategy also had political uses, and importantly it was used to rearrange natural succession in the imperial family. The book concludes with political adoptions, looking at the detailed case studies of Clodius and Octavian.Thucydides, Pericles, And The Idea Of Athens In The Peloponnesian War
By Martha C. Taylor. 2010
Thucydides, Pericles, and the Idea of Athens in the Peloponnesian War is the first comprehensive study of Thucydides' presentation of…
Pericles' radical redefinition of the city of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Martha Taylor argues that Thucydides subtly critiques Pericles' vision of Athens as a city divorced from the territory of Attica and focused, instead, on the sea and the empire. Thucydides shows that Pericles' reconceputalization of the city led the Athenians both to Melos and to Sicily. Toward the end of his work, Thucydides demonstrates that flexible thinking about the city exacerbated the Athenians' civil war. Providing a thorough critique and analysis of Thucydides' neglected book 8, Taylor shows that Thucydides praises political compromise centered around the traditional city in Attica. In doing so, he implicitly censures both Pericles and the Athenian imperial project itself.The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World
By Claudia Rapp, H. A. Drake. 2014
This volume examines the evolving role of the city and citizenship from classical Athens through fifth-century Rome and medieval Byzantium.…
Beginning in the first century CE, the universal claims of Hellenistic and Roman imperialism began to be challenged by the growing role of Christianity in shaping the primary allegiances and identities of citizens. An international team of scholars considers the extent of urban transformation, and with it, of cultural and civic identity, as practices and institutions associated with the city-state came to be replaced by those of the Christian community. The twelve essays gathered here develop an innovative research agenda by asking new questions: What was the effect on political ideology and civic identity of the transition from the city culture of the ancient world to the ruralized systems of the middle ages? How did perceptions of empire and oikoumene respond to changed political circumstances? How did Christianity redefine the context of citizenship?War, Peace, And Alliance In Demosthenes' Athens
By Peter Hunt. 2010
Every Athenian alliance, every declaration of war, and every peace treaty was instituted by a decision of the assembly, where…
citizens voted after listening to speeches that presented varied and often opposing arguments about the best course of action. The fifteen preserved assembly speeches of the mid-fourth century BC thus provide an unparalleled body of evidence for the way that Athenians thought and felt about interstate relations: to understand this body of oratory is to understand how the Athenians of that period made decisions about war and peace. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive treatment of this subject. It deploys insights from a range of fields, from anthropology to international relations theory, in order not only to describe Athenian thinking, but also to explain it. Athenian thinking turns out to have been complex, sophisticated, and surprisingly familiar both in its virtues and its flaws.Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean World
By Margaretha Kramer-Hajos. 2016
In this book, Kramer-Hajos examines the Euboean Gulf region in Central Greece to explain its flourishing during the post-palatial period.…
Providing a social and political history of the region in the Late Bronze Age, she focuses on the interactions between this 'provincial' coastal area and the core areas where the Mycenaean palaces were located. Drawing on network and agency theory, two current and highly effective methodologies in prehistoric Mediterranean archaeology, Kramer-Hajos argues that the Euboean Gulf region thrived when it was part of a decentralized coastal and maritime network, and declined when it was incorporated in a highly centralized mainland-looking network. Her research and analysis contributes new insights to our understanding of the mechanics and complexity of the Bronze Age Aegean collapse.The Material Life of Roman Slaves
By Sandra R. Joshel, Lauren Hackworth Petersen. 2014
The Material Life of Roman Slaves is a major contribution to scholarly debates on the archaeology of Roman slavery. Rather…
than regarding slaves as irretrievable in archaeological remains, the book takes the archaeological record as a key form of evidence for reconstructing slaves' lives and experiences. Interweaving literature, law, and material evidence, the book searches for ways to see slaves in the various contexts - to make them visible where evidence tells us they were in fact present. Part of this project involves understanding how slaves seem irretrievable in the archaeological record and how they are often actively, if unwittingly, left out of guidebooks and scholarly literature. Individual chapters explore the dichotomy between visibility and invisibility and between appearance and disappearance in four physical and social locations - urban houses, city streets and neighborhoods, workshops, and villas.A Historical and Topographical Guide to the Geography of Strabo
By Duane W. Roller. 2017
Strabo s Geography completed in the early first century AD is the primary source for the history of…
Greek geography This Guide provides the first English analysis of and commentary on this long and difficult text and serves as a companion to the author s The Geography of Strabo the first English translation of the work in many years It thoroughly analyzes each of the seventeen books and provides perhaps the most thorough bibliography as yet created for Strabo s work Careful attention is paid to the historical and cultural data the thousands of toponyms and the many lost historical sources that are preserved only in the Geography This volume guides readers through the challenges and complexities of the text allowing an enhanced understanding of the numerous topics that Strabo covers from the travels of Alexander and the history of the Mediterranean to science religion and cultUnderstanding Early Civilizations
By Bruce G. Trigger. 2003
Arising independently in various parts of the world, early civilizations--the first class-based societies in human history--are of importance to social…
scientists interested in the development of complexity, while their cultural productions fascinate both humanists and the general public. This book offers the first detailed comparative study of the seven most fully documented early civilizations: ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Shang China, the Aztecs and their neighbors, the Classic Maya, the Inca, and the Yoruba. Unlike previous studies, equal attention is paid to similarities and differences in their sociopolitical organization, their economic systems, and their religious beliefs, knowledge, art, and values. Many of this study's findings are surprising and provocative. They challenge not only current understandings of early civilizations but also the theoretical foundations of modern archaeology and anthropology. Rival cultural and ecological approaches are demonstrated to be complimentary to one another, while a comprehensive understanding of human behavior is shown to require that more attention be paid to psychology and the neurosciences. Bruce G. Trigger is James McGill Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University. He received his PhD from Yale University and has carried out archaeological research in Egypt and the Sudan. His current interests include the comparative study of early civilizations, the history of archaeology, and archaeological and anthropological theory. He has received various scholarly awards, including the Prix Leon-Gerin from the Quebec government, for his sustained contributions to the social sciences. He is an honarary fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and an honarary member of the Prehistoric Society (U. K. ). His numerous books include Sociological Evolution (Blackwell, 1998), Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context (Amer. Univ in Cairo, 1993), A History of Archaeological Thought (Cambridge, 1989), and The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (McGill-Queens Univ. , 1976).Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader
By Perez Zagorin. 2005
This book is a concise, readable introduction to the Greek author Thucydides, who is widely regarded as one of the…
foremost historians of all time. Why does Thucydides continue to matter today? Perez Zagorin answers this question by examining Thucydides' landmark History of the Peloponnesian War, one of the great classics of Western civilization. This history, Zagorin explains, is far more than a mere chronicle of the conflict between Athens and Sparta, the two superpowers of Greece in the fifth century BCE. It is also a remarkable story of politics, decision-making, the uses of power, and the human and communal experience of war. Zagorin maintains that the work remains of permanent interest because of the exceptional intellect that Thucydides brought to the writing of history, and to the originality, penetration, and the breadth and intensity of vision that inform his narrative. The first half of Zagorin's book discusses the intellectual and historical background to Thucydides' work and its method, structure, and view of the causes of the war. The following chapters deal with Thucydides' portrayal of the Athenian leader Pericles and his account of some of the main episodes of the war, such as the revolution in Corcyra and the Athenian invasion of Sicily. The book concludes with an insightful discussion of Thucydides as a thinker and philosophic historian. Designed to introduce both students and general readers to a work that is an essential part of a liberal education, this book seeks to encourage readers to explore Thucydides--one of the world's greatest historians--for themselves.Cicero: Catilinarians
By Andrew R. Dyck. 2008
As consul in 63 BC Cicero faced a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman state launched by the frustrated consular candidate…
Lucius Sergius Catilina. Cicero's handling of this crisis would shape foreverafter the way he defined himself and his statesmanship. The four speeches he delivered during the crisis show him at the height of his oratorical powers and political influence. Divided between deliberative speeches given in the senate (1 and 4) and informational speeches delivered before the general public (2 and 3), the Catilinarians illustrate Cicero's adroit handling of several distinct types of rhetoric. Beginning in antiquity, this corpus served as a basic text for generations of students but fell into neglect during the past half-century. This edition, which is aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and graduate students, takes account of recently discovered papyrus evidence, recent studies of Cicero's language, style and rhetorical techniques, and the relevant historical background.Farewell Britannia
By Simon Young. 2010
Brilliant young historian Simon Young has invented a multi-generational family, part Roman, part Celtic (invaders intermarrying with natives) to tell…
the dramatic story of 400 years of Roman rule in Britain. Vivid historical detail is balanced by a real feel for the psychological depth of the individual stories. The narrator is writing this 'family history' in 430 AD, realising the Romans will never return. He chooses 14 of the most interesting, but not always the most admirable, of his ancestors. The big events of Roman Britain are all here: scouting for Caesar's expedition in 55 BC; the Roman invasion in 43 AD; Boudicca's revolt and the massacre of 70,000 Romans; the Pict attacks on Hadrian's Wall; the great Barbarian Conspiracy of 367; and the sudden cataclysmic departure of the legions in 410. But there are plenty of non-military episodes: spying on the Druids; a centurion dreaming of retirement with a young slave he has bought; an ambitious wife on the northern frontier; a bad poet in Londinium; infanticide in Surrey; a young Christian girl facing martyrdom in a British amphitheatre.