Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment


Book Description

Annotation Contains texts from 112 historians of the last three millennia who discuss the problems, purposes, and methods of history writing. Kelley provides commentary and interpretation. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Faces of History


Book Description

In this book, one of the world's leading intellectual historians offers a critical survey of Western historical thought and writing from the pre-classical era to the late eighteenth century. Donald R. Kelley focuses on persistent themes and methodology, including questions of myth, national origins, chronology, language, literary forms, rhetoric, translation, historical method and criticism, theory and practice of interpretation, cultural studies, philosophy of history, and "historicism." Kelley begins by analyzing the dual tradition established by the foundational works of Greek historiography--Herodotus's broad cultural and antiquarian inquiry and the contrasting model of Thucydides' contemporary political and analytical narrative. He then examines the many variations on and departures from these themes produced in writings from Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian antiquity, in medieval chronicles, in national histories and revisions of history during the Renaissance and Reformation, and in the rise of erudite and enlightened history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Throughout, Kelley discusses how later historians viewed their predecessors, including both supporters and detractors of the authors in question. The book, which is a companion volume to Kelley's highly praised anthology Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, will be a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in interpretations of the past.




Magic in Western Culture


Book Description

The story of the beliefs and practices called 'magic' starts in ancient Iran, Greece, and Rome, before entering its crucial Christian phase in the Middle Ages. Centering on the Renaissance and Marsilio Ficino - whose work on magic was the most influential account written in premodern times - this groundbreaking book treats magic as a classical tradition with foundations that were distinctly philosophical. Besides Ficino, the premodern story of magic also features Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Aquinas, Agrippa, Pomponazzi, Porta, Bruno, Campanella, Descartes, Boyle, Leibniz, and Newton, to name only a few of the prominent thinkers discussed in this book. Because pictures play a key role in the story of magic, this book is richly illustrated.




Law and Justice from Antiquity to Enlightenment


Book Description

This concise intellectual history of the law offers an accessible introduction to the ideas and contexts of law from ancient Babylon to eighteenth-century Europe. Robert W. Shaffern examines a rich array of sources to illuminate ideas about law and justice in Western civilization. He identifies four main sources for traditional jurisprudence—the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and classical Athens, the legal legacy of ancient Rome, the legal traditions of the Middle Ages, and developments in early modern Europe. By focusing on the recurring issues and historical contexts of the law, the author shows the extensive influence earlier sources had on the later development of Western law. For instance, the ancient code of Hammurabi pledged to obtain justice for the "widow and the orphan," a phrase that appeared again in later laws. Also, the tragedies of Aeschylus insisted that private individuals pursue vengeance, but government judiciaries upheld justice, an idea that the early modern European monarchies advanced when they promulgated new codes of criminal law. Additionally, Roman, medieval, and modern jurists all believed that natural law theory served as a rational criterion for legislators and judges. Throughout the span of centuries covered in the text, governments used law to regulate or monopolize the employment of violence. Designed to introduce undergraduates to the significant developments and ideas about the law and justice, this book will be invaluable for courses on the history of law and jurisprudence.




Antiquity and Enlightenment Culture


Book Description

This volume explores the place of antiquity in Enlightenment Europe. It considers the contexts, questions, and agendas that shaped eighteenth-century engagements with the ancient world, shedding new light on familiar figures and recovering forgotten chapters in this European story.




Western Society: A Brief History


Book Description

This brief edition offers the unsurpassed social history of A History of Western Society in an accessible, lively format. Short enough to use with supplements and more affordable than its parent text, A Brief History retains the sustained attention to daily life, the rich art and map program, and all of the special features of the full-length edition. Extensive study aids help students comprehend the material and prepare for exams. Now you can have it all in a briefer book.




Sources for Western Society, Volume 1


Book Description

Sources for Western Society provides a variety of primary sources to accompany A History of Western Society, Eleventh Edition and the new Value edition of A History of Western Society. With over fifty new selections—including a dozen new visual sources—and enhanced pedagogy throughout, students are given the tools to engage critically with canonical and lesser known sources, and prominent and ordinary voices. Each chapter includes a "Sources in Conversation" feature that presents differing views on key topics. This companion reader is an exceptional value for students and offers plenty of assignment options for instructors.




A History of Western Society, Volume 1


Book Description

Long praised by instructors and students alike for its readability and attention to everyday life, the eleventh edition of A History of Western Society includes even more built-in tools to engage today's students and save instructors time. This edition features a brand-new, comprehensive primary source program in-text and online, expanded chapters devoted to the lives of ordinary people that make the past real and relevant, and the best and latest scholarship throughout. Enhanced with a wealth of digital content—including carefully developed online document assignments for each chapter with auto-graded exercises—the eleventh edition provides easily assignable options for instructors and novel ways for students to master the content. Now integrated with LearningCurve, an adaptive online resource that helps students retain the material and come to class prepared. To see an example of the new Online Document Assignment from Chapter 14, click here. What's in the LaunchPad




The Enlightenment


Book Description

In this concise, bold, and innovative book, Dan Edelstein offers us an original account of the Enlightenment. It convincingly argues that the Enlightenment is above all a narrative about social and cultural changes and that its origins can be found in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. Therefore, by reconsidering the importance of the French esprit philosophique in the Euroean Enlightenment, this book will be of considerable importance for every scholar and student interested in this period.




Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance


Book Description

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; Part I. Classical Encyclopaedism: 2. Encyclopaedism in the Roman Empire Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; 3. Encyclopaedism in the Alexandrian Library Myrto Hatzimichali; 4. Labores pro bono publico: the burdensome mission of Pliny's Natural History Mary Beagon; 5. Encyclopaedias of virtue? Collections of sayings and stories about wise men in Greek Teresa Morgan; 6. Plutarch's corpus of Quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism Katerina Oikonomopoulou; 7. Artemidorus' Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia Daniel Harris-McCoy; 8. Encyclopaedias and autocracy: Justinian's Encyclopaedia of Roman law Jill Harries; 9. Late Latin encyclopaedism: towards a new paradigm of practical knowledge Marco Formisano; Part II. Medieval Encyclopaedism: 10. Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries Paul Magdalino; 11. The imperial systematisation of the past in Constantinople: Constantine VII and his Historical Excerpts Andres Nemeth; 12. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: Joseph Rhakendys' synopsis of Byzantine learning Erika Gielen; 13. Shifting horizons: the medieval compilation of knowledge as mirror of a changing world Elizabeth Keen; 14. Isidore's Etymologies: on words and things Andrew Merrills; 15. Loose Giblets: encyclopaedic sensibilities of ordinatio and compilatio in later medieval English literary culture and the sad case of Reginald Pecock Ian Johnson; 16. Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? Elias Muhanna; 17. Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers Maaike van Berkel; Part III. Renaissance Encyclopaedism: 18. Revisiting Renaissance encyclopaedism Ann Blair; 19. Philosophy and the Renaissance encyclpaedia: some observations D.C. Andersson; 20. Reading 'Pliny's Ape' in the Renaissance: the Polyhistor of Cai++.