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foreword by Pierre Vidal-Naquet The acclaimed French classicist
Marcel Detienne's first book traces the odyssey of "truth,"
aletheia, from mytho-religious concept to philosophical thought in
archaic Greece. Detienne begins by examining how truth in Greek
literature first emerges as an enigma. He then looks at the
movement from a religious to a secular thinking about truth in the
speech of the sophists and orators. His study culminates with an
original interpretation of Parmenides' poem on Being.
Assassins of Memory is a passionate and painstaking look at one of
the more curious realities of recent French cultural life: the
prominence accorded to the phenomenon of revisionism. An attempt on
the part of a tiny group of fanatics, often masquerading as
scholars and researchers, to deny the existence of the gas chambers
and horrors of Hitler's genocidal policies, revisionism is quietly
gaining adherents.
"No one can fail to admire the brilliance of the connections
Vidal-Naquet suggests ...Audacity has been characteristic of
Vidal-Naquet's career from the start; it marked his activities as a
historian engage in the political struggle; it is visible at work
in every page of this book."-Bernard Knox, from the Foreword The
black hunter travels through the mountains and forests of Greek
mythology, living on the frontier of the city-state, of adulthood,
of class, of ethics, of sexuality. Taking its title from this
figure, The Black Hunter approaches the Greek world from its
margins and charts the elaborate system of oppositions that
pervaded Greek culture and society: cultivated and wild, citizen
and foreigner, real and imaginary, god and man. Organizing his
discussions around four principle themes-space and time; youth and
warriors; women, slaves, and artisans; and the city of vision and
of reality-Pierre Vidal-Naquet focuses on the congruence of the
textual and the actual, on the patterns that link literary,
philosophical, and historical works with such social activities as
war, slavery, education, and commemoration. The Black Hunter probes
the interplay of world view, language, and social practice "to
bring into dialogue that which does not naturally communicate
according to the usual criteria of historical judgement." "A
brilliant demonstration of structural analysis and its usefulness
in illuminating well-known texts and providing fresh insights
...What strikes the reader of this book is its daring, innovative
interpretations. This is not a book that merely collects new
information or synthesizes old views. It bursts into the heart of
important themes and floods them with bright light."-Modern Greek
Studies Yearbook "One of the liveliest intellects in the field
...There is a wealth of learning in this book; specialists ...will
wish to consult individual articles while the general reader will
not only learn but enjoy its contents and tenor."-Classical World
"Excellent ...Vidal-Naquet's book is a gem. It will stimulate
further thoughts, discussions and writings on the Greek politeia
and politikon. It should be read by all those who are involved in
classical and comparative studies. It puts into circulation a
structuralist reading which is provocative and simultaneously rings
true."-V. Y. Mudimbe, Journal of Ritual Studies
Pierre Vidal-Naquet, internationally celebrated author of Assassins
of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust, here takes
readers on a fascinating journey through key phases of Jewish
history over more than two millennia. Drawing on a vast reservoir
of historical knowledge, Vidal-Naquet unravels a series of myths
and ideologies that have become entangled with Jewish history over
the centuries. The Jews covers subjects as deep in the past as the
Jewish encounter with Hellenization in the second century B.C.E.,
and as current as modern-day Israeli-Palestinian relations. The
Jews opens in the classical period, looking in particular at the
work of Flavius Josephus, who wrote the original account of the
events at Masada. Resisting the powerful currents of ideological
orthodoxy, Vidal-Naquet examines what he views as Israeli
nationalist distortions of the historical and archaeological record
at Masada. In the promotion of an ideal of Jewish unity in the
ancient world, he contends, some have chosen to ignore evidence of
pluralism, civil strife, and the power of the Diaspora experience
in the Jewish past. The book continues with an engaging discussion
of the era of Jewish emancipation in Europe, during the French
Revolution and thereafter, in which Vidal-Naquet explores the
complex meanings of emancipation and assimilation. Employing
previously unexamined material written by Alfred Dreyfus himself,
he continues with a reevaluation of the Dreyfus affair, the episode
of anti-Semitism and betrayal that shook France at the turn of the
century. The Jews explores books, films, and eyewitness accounts of
the Holocaust, including works by Arno Mayer, Claude Lanzmann, and
Primo Levi. The booklooks also at a recently published wartime
journal by Vidal-Naquet's father, written in the years before he
was deported. Vidal-Naquet is equally concerned with the disturbing
phenomenon of Holocaust denial, pointing to the question of the gas
chambers as central to refuting revisionist claims. The book closes
with a personal account of growing up in Vichy France: integrating
the tools of historiography with his own vivid memories of the war
years, Vidal-Naquet recounts in moving detail the Occupation and
the fateful day the Gestapo arrived at his home to take away his
parents.
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