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Books > Humanities > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Stonehenge was not an observatory used by druidical
astronomer-priests. It was, instead, a monument in which the moon
and the sun and the dead were joined together. In this book the
author explains how people in the British Isles, four thousand or
more years ago, identified life and death with the cycle of
midwinter and midsummer and with the risings and settings of the
sun and moon. This is why so many megalithic monuments have
astronomical sightlines built into them. This book describes how
astronomical customs developed in the British Isles. Unlike other
works about 'megalithic astronomy' technical explanations about
azimuths and declinations are kept to their simplest. The emphasis
here is upon people rather than pertrubations and eclipses.
For two thousand years the real, physical metropolis lay buried
while another, ghostly city lived on through ideas as varied as the
legendary Hanging Gardens, the career of the biblical Daniel, and
even the Apocalypse. More recently, the site of Babylon has been
the centre of major excavation, yet the spectacular results of this
work have done little to displace the many other fascinating ways
in which the city has endured and reinvented itself in culture.
Saddam Hussein, for one, notoriously exploited the Babylonian myth
to associate himself and his regime with its glorious past. Why has
Babylon so creatively fired the human imagination, with results
both good and ill? Why has it been enthralling to so many, and for
so long?In exploring answers, Michael Seymour ranges extensively
over space and time and embraces art, archaeology, history and
literature. From Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, via Strabo and
Diodorus, to the Book of Revelation, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Voltaire,
William Blake and modern interpreters like Umberto Eco, Italo
Calvino and Gore Vidal, the author brings to light a carnival of
disparate sources dominated by powerful and intoxicating ideas such
as the Tower of Babel and the city of sin. Babylon: Legend, History
and the Ancient City weighs idea against reality, fiction against
fact, conjuring the fascinating story of this ancient metropolis
and its legacy to brilliant life as never before.
The OS Historical Map series comprises of Ancient Britain and Roman
Britain. Each archaeological period is identified using different
symbols and colours to show sites from the Stone Age through to the
early Middle Ages against a modern map base, double-sided to cover
the whole country. The Ancient Britain map and guide is
complemented by a timeline that shows British events in relation to
wider history. Key sites of significant historical interest are
highlighted using photographs, text and thumbnail mapping from the
OS Landranger map series. Additional information, such as a list of
archaeological terms, suggested reading and museums to visit, is
also included.
Just who did the British think they were? For much of the last
1,500 years, when the British looked back to their origins they saw
the looming mythological figure of Brutus of Troy. A
great-great-grandson of the love goddess Aphrodite through her
Trojan son Aeneas (the hero of Virgil's Aeneid), Brutus
accidentally killed his father and was exiled to Greece. He
liberated the descendants of the Trojans who lived there in slavery
and led them on an epic voyage to Britain. Landing at Totnes in
Devon, Brutus overthrew the giants who lived in Britain, laid the
foundations of Oxford University and London and sired a long line
of kings, including King Arthur and the ancestors of the present
Royal Family.Invented to give Britain a place in the overarching
mythologies of the Classical world and the Bible, Brutus's story
long underpinned the British identity and played a crucial role in
royal propaganda and foreign policy. His story inspired generations
of poets and playwrights, including Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
Pope, Wordsworth, Dickens and Blake, whose hymn 'Jerusalem' was a
direct response to the story of Brutus founding London as the New
Troy in the west.Leading genealogist Anthony Adolph traces Brutus's
story from Roman times onwards, charting his immense popularity and
subsequent fall from grace, along with his lasting legacy in
fiction, pseudo-history and the arcane mythology surrounding some
of London's best-known landmarks, in this groundbreaking biography
of the mythological founder of Britain.
This accessible edition for students presents Herodotus as one of
the most fascinating and colourful authors from the ancient world.
Book III of Herodotus’ nine-book work is one of the richest in
its exploration of themes, such as the practices and customs of
different peoples and the nature of political power, issues still
much debated today. This commentary illuminates the geographical
and even anthropological scope of Herodotus' history, and enables
students to confidently tackle the text in the original Greek.
Bringing together a full introduction, text, commentary and
translation, Longley makes Herodotus accessible to students of
ancient Greek. This guide shows us why Herodotus is still
considered the ‘Father of History’.
Marginal Comment, which attracted keen and widespread interest on
its original publication in 1994, is the remarkable memoir of one
of the most distinguished classical scholars of the modern era. Its
author, Sir Kenneth Dover, whose academic publications included the
pathbreaking book Greek Homosexuality (1978, reissued by Bloomsbury
in 2016), conceived of it as an 'experimental' autobiography -
ruthlessly candid in retracing the full range of the author's
experiences, both private and public, and unflinching in its
attempt to analyse the entanglements between the life of the mind
and the life of the body. Dover's distinguished career involved not
only an influential series of writings about the ancient Greeks but
also a number of prominent positions of leadership, including the
presidencies of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the British
Academy. It was in those positions that he became involved in
several high-profile controversies, including the blocking of an
honorary degree for Margaret Thatcher from Oxford University, and a
bitter debate in the British Academy over the fellowship of Anthony
Blunt after his exposure as a former Soviet spy. This edition of
Marginal Comment is much more than a reissue: it includes an
introduction which frames the book in relation to its author's life
and work, as well as annotations based in part on materials
originally excluded by Dover but left in his personal papers on
this death. Now newly available, the memoir provides not only the
self-portrait of an exceptional individual but a rich case-study in
the intersections between an intellectual life and its social
contexts.
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