eBooks de Historia Universal, página 10 de 627

This integration of earlier and new scholarship reconceptualizes the origins of civilization, challenging the received view that the ancient Near East spawned the spread of civilization outward from Mesopotamia to all other neighboring cultures. Central Asia is here shown to have been a major player in the development of cities. Skillfully documenting the different phases of both Soviet and earlier Western external analyses along with recent excavation results, this new interpretation reveals Central Asias role in the socioeconomic and political processes linked to both the Iranian Plateau and the Indus Valley, showing how it contributed substantively to the origins of urbanism in the Old World. Hieberts research at Anau and his focus on the Chalcolithic levels provide an essential starting point for understanding both the nature of village life and the historical trajectories that resulted in Bronze Age urbanism.

The reformation of the Western Church was a series of momentous events that uprooted many things previously taken for granted. In the wake of these dramatic changes, adherents to the various emerging confessional cultures in the sixteenth century sought assurance with the help of historiography. They created specific narratives of the events surrounding the Reformation and a historical continuity from early Christianity to legitimize their own religious teaching and practice. Subsequently, the Reformation, as a process of reform, renewal, or upheaval of church and society, shaped the way contemporary actors and the following generations dealt with history in the pre-modern era. The authors of the present volume pursue inquiries into these and other related developments, taking a wide range of denominational perspectives in various European contexts into account, until well into the eighteenth century.

Plato is often reproached for having a distorted view of democracy due to prejudice and an elitist philosophical approach. Such objections are not utterly groundless, but they miss the gist of the matter. One of the main aims of this study is to show that, while conceiving his critique of democracy, Plato has a clear perception of its development and elements. A further objective is to demonstrate how he draws on democratic ideology to advance his own political theory. Accordingly, this e-book will expose numerous intertextual connections of Plato with other authors of this epoch. The first and greater part of this study reveals how in the "Gorgias" Plato gives a detailed account on the process of democratic mans transformation into tyrannical man. The second part examines the parallels between this dialogue and the "Republic". Thus, Platos intimate knowledge of democratic ideology shows that his criticism of phenomena such as absolute freedom, demagoguery (populism), glorification of power, traditional politics etc. remains relevant.

Appeal to emotion is a key technique of persuasion, ranked by Aristotle alongside logical reasoning and arguments from character. Although ancient philosophical discussions of it have been much researched, exploration of its practical use has focused largely on explicit appeals to a handful of emotions (anger, hatred, envy, pity) in 5th4th century BCE Athenian courtroom oratory. This volume expands horizons: from an opening section focusing on so-far underexplored emotions and sub-genres of oratory in Classical Athens, its scope moves outwards generically, geographically, and chronologically through the "Greek East" to Rome. Key thematic links are: the role of emotion in the formation of community identity; persuasive strategies in situations of unequal power; and linguistic formulae and genre-specific emotional persuasion. Other recurring themes include performance (rather than arousal) of emotions, the choice between emotional and rational argumentation, the emotions of gods, and a concern with a secondary "audience": the reader.

Polis, in plural poleis, is the word the ancient Greeks used to describe their principal type of state and community and the most common of all nouns in ancient Greek. In Archaic and Classical sources there are over 11,000 attestations of the word, and they show that it was used in two different senses: (1) town (sometimes including the hinterland) and (2) state (sometimes including the territory). Often it carries both senses simultaneously and denotes both the state and its urban centre. The Copenhagen Polis Centre (19932005) conducted a number of investigations into the use and meanings of the term polis in all Archaic and Classical sources to find out what the Greeks thought a polis was. The present volume is a thoroughly revised and updated comprehensive publication of all these studies, to which four new studies have been added. They show that the two different meanings of the word polis are connected through their reference: with very few exceptions every polis town was the urban centre of a polis state, and conversely: virtually every polis state had an urban centre called a polis in the sense of town.

Andreas Alfoldi (18951981) was an eminent ancient historian, numismatist, archaeologist and epigraphist. His scholarly output, as vast as it was diverse, covered archaic Rome, the late Republic, the provinces of the Roman Empire, especially the Danube region, and late antiquity. Alfoldis work was marked by extraordinary erudition, by his ability to draw on all manner of evidence, no matter how disparate, and by astonishing fertility and originality, and yet, while a number of his publications remain influential, others some of which were controversial even when they first appeared are now largely ignored. This volume, which comes some thirty years after Alfoldis death and a century after his first publication (at just 19 years of age), contains a collection of papers that shed light on Alfoldis life and discuss his work on a variety of topics, from earliest Rome to late antiquity. It offers a wide-ranging assessment of Alfoldis arguments and ideas, both those that have been influential and those that have been superseded or neglected, and explores an academic career that began in Alfoldis native Hungary and ended in exile in the United States.

This is the first intensive analysis of one of the most significant figures in Greek history: Polycrates, the 6th century BC Greek tyrant of Samos island, who was renowned for unassailable control of the Aegean Sea when Egypt and Persia were competing for dominance in the area. Polycrates played a pivotal role in this tumultuous period, and in the histories of Archaic Greece, Achaemenid Persia, and Saite Egypt. The chronological extent of this e-book ranges from the late 7th century BC to Polycrates death in 522 BC. Key questions concern the basis of his tyranny within the context of earlier Samian history, his alliance with Egypt, his possible support for the Persian invasion of Egypt c. 525 BC, and the reason for an attack on him by Sparta at roughly the same time.With sensitive use of Near Eastern evidence, a new picture emerges of Greek relations with the Near Eastern empires one that has profound implications for traditional concepts of both tyranny and voluntary mercenary service in the archaic period.

During the interwar years, the footwear industry was confronted with similarly revolutionary changes and processes to those in the automobile industry which tend to be associated with the name of Henry Ford. Their major vehicle became the originally Czechoslovak enterprise of the Baa siblings, which, during the first decades of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach.Seventeen researchers from Europe and North America trace the fascinating story of the Baa concern, a substantive chapter of which from the end of the 1920s became the establishment of company towns. From various perspectives, they focus their attention on this unique model of industrial organization which was discussed widely in its time and which in retrospect can be considered one of the true pinnacles of private capitalist urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century.

The concepts of memory and experience have stimulated interest in a wide range of recent cultural studies. In the history of scholarship on religion in Mediterranean antiquity, scholars have focused on the emotional dimension of both terms by employing the concepts of Christianity and its derivative, oriental religion. Only recently analyses in this field started focusing on interaction and individual experience. Research initiatives at Palermo and Erfurt have taken up this lead and brought together a group of scholars testing such approaches for new perspectives on the history of religion in the Greek and Roman world. This volume reviews the cognitive and emotional dimensions of such experiences in their diverse local, social, and ritual contexts. Memory likewise opens a window onto the interaction of individual and society. Contributions address the individual processes of memorialization and remembrance. They analyse the collective evocation of memories and their shaping of individual memory.

This volume approaches the memory of abuses of power in past and present societies from a transdisciplinary perspective. On the one hand methodological approaches and schemes of analysis are developed from the point of view of philosophy and theory of history, history didactics, literary studies, anthropology, Church and religious history. On the other hand, the contributions deal with case studies that pay special attention to the Holocaust, to mass violence and war, the history of slavery, missionary history and sexual abuse. The focus is on narratives of memory, politics of history, the relation between historiography, public memory, restitution and reparation, but also on empowerment and participation in civil society and by victims of violence in the creation of public memory, spaces of commemoration and memorials regarding instances of abuse of power.

Palmyra was a unique place within the Roman Empire. The city, located in a Syrian oasis, preserved a culture and social organization of its own distinct character. It was closely intertwined with a larger region that extended beyond the boundaries of the Empire. Its livelihood was sustained through long-distance trade, not through agriculture or the production of commodities. And the people of Palmyra remained identifiable and distinguishable as Palmyrenes even when they left the oasis and established a life far from their homeland. Therefore, one can rightly speak of a Palmyrene diaspora, of which this e-book provides the first in-depth study.

The "Making of Saints" is a phenomenon of central significance to Christianity since a vision-inspired Ambrosius discovered the remains of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius in 386 AD in Milan. In North Africa it seems to have taken on an extremely interesting form that makes Brent D. Shaw speaking of the blood of the martyrs as "the vital force, the kinetic energy powering Christian life in Africa".This volume contributes to the productively expanding research field of North African Christianity by providing narrative analyses on the one hand and presenting case studies from an archaeological perspective on the other, which allow a comparative perspective of the phenomenon in order to systematically combine them: narrative alone did not "make" a martyr, architectural staging too was needed the story made the martyr and the staging made the saint. The multidisciplinary approach brings together the most recent results concerning excavations and epigraphy, but also an innovative conceptual understanding of text, space, and last but not least religion, in order to examine the social function that the veneration of martyrs had in a longue duree perspective.

Edward Said, in his seminal book Orientalism, perceived clear links between the ancient Greek and Roman stereotypes of the East and the prejudiced European nineteenth-century picture of the Muslim world, which was considered exotic, backward, uncivilised, degenerate, and dangerous, in contrast with the Western societies that were seen as developed, rational, flexible, and, above all, superior. However, the reality is much more complex shaped by both the imperialist perceptions of defeated enemies embraced by all Middle Eastern empires going back at least to the Assyrians, and the intermixed admiration and jealousy of the old Eastern traditions of learning. Part of the Greek and Roman stereotypes of the East are rooted in the interaction with eastern imperial ideals, being taken over and further developed to strengthen common Hellenic and Roman identities. Due to the subsequent free borrowing of these stereotypes and their application to different societies, the Orient has always been a moving (n)everwhere with each culture constructing their own Oriental mirages.

Two twentieth-century genocides set the context of this discussion of history and remembrance: Armenian Christians commemorate their victims from the 1915 Armenian Genocide in their memorial Tsitsernakaberd. And Yad Vashem is an international memorial site for the Jewish Shoah. In the process of coming to terms with the past and preserving the past, a transition to a comprehensive culture of remembrance followed. Memory as a cultural achievement provides ideal orientation for a modern approach and visualization of the traumatic past.Both memorials represent multilingualism of postmodern architecture in their simple but modern construction. But already in the planning process symbols of traditional religions were vehemently overlooked. Nevertheless, the important questions were taken up: Where is the boundary between the profane and the sacred? How many sacred elements are allowed in the dialogue with the absentee? Despite all the assurances that religion should not play a role in the content of the memorial, Jutta Kirsch shows that behind the political staging and language of the postmodern architecture, a lot of religion is contained in narratives, symbols and biblically inspired texts and contents.

During the period between the end of the Hannibalic War and Octavians decisive victory in the battle of Actium in 31 BC, the Italian peninsula gradually evolved as the heartland of the Roman Empire as it was expanding across the Mediterranean. The international team of contributors to this e-book elucidates different aspects of the social, cultural and political tensions that erupted as part of this process, and which more than once threatened the very existence of the Roman Republic as an imperial power. Central themes include the relationship between Rome and the Italians as unequal partners; the visual and architectural representation of these dynamics; the place of Italy within Roman concepts of imperial rule; and the gradual, contested transformation of the allied polities into regional communities of Roman citizens.

After having been for decades the province of a relatively small group of scholars, the Hellenistic polis has become central to the research agenda of Ancient historians more broadly. This development can be traced from the early nineties of the last century, and has picked up pace in a sustained fashion at the turn of the millennium. Recent research has started approaching the Greek polis of the centuries between Alexander and Cleopatra as a specific historical phenomenon, striving to define its most peculiar aspects from as many angles as possible, and to point to new avenues of interpretation that might contribute to recognizing its historical role. In this general framework, this volume attempts to explore new lines of thought, to question established ways of reading the evidence, and to take stock of recent developments. The contributors do not subscribe to any particular shared approach; on the contrary, their approaches and questions stem from many different scholarly traditions and methodologies. Rather than seeking to achieve a complete coverage, the volume provides a selection of current research agendas, in many cases offering glimpses of ongoing projects.

Was there any awareness of environmental problems among intellectuals and politicians of the ancient world? Did they even have notions of pollution, exploitation, and depletion of natural resources? And what forms did human action take for the protection of the environment?The authors from the fields of Ancient History, Classical Archeology, Ancient Laws, and History of Medicine focus on the environmental and ecological awareness in the ancient world, both in material evidence of daily life and in the intellectual thought. They analyse if there was a common awareness of environmental and ecological questions, or if there were only a few and isolated measures aimed at the interest of special social groups and at specific political goals. They discuss to which extent the ancient evidence can be used to identify the roots of modern environmental sensitivity.

This e-book explores late-sixth and early fifth-century Boiotia as a case study in the construction and articulation of collective identity in archaic and early classical Greece. By juxtaposing a variety of sources historiography, numismatics, iconography, epigraphy the author discusses traditions of Boiotian descent and territory as well as Boiotian use of a common symbol, promotion of shared dialect, and use of a common name. These sources suggest that by the late sixth century the Boiotians actively promoted collective links to Athena and Thessaly as well as to epic tradition and specific epic heroes. They did not begin using their collective name in a strictly political or military sense until the middle of the fifth century BC. With this ethnic portrait, the author offers an alternate explanation to the opinio communis that attributes late sixth-century Boiotian solidarity to an early political and military federation of poleis. The author rather argues that the Boiotians adopted a permanent federal system only in the mid-fifth century.

The modern image of the Roman aristocrat L. Licinius Lucullus (cos. 74 B.C.) is, to a large extent, the creation of the Greek biographer Plutarch, whose narrative is structured around a number of themes and leitmotifs: the protagonists association with Hellenic culture, his luxurious lifestyle, and various issues related to his role as a political and military leader. In all of these fields, the depiction of Lucullus is conditioned not only by Plutarchs interests and emphases, but also by the nature of the sources at his disposal. Owing to Plutarchs biographical technique and due to the bias of the contrasting traditions underlying his account, the protagonists actions are frequently decontextualised from their contemporary setting. Lucullus emerges from this e-book as an ambitious noble operating within the highly competitive system of Republican politics, and seeking to accumulate and to display power and prestige.

Death and the individual are part of a still new and promising field of research in the ancient world. 11 international scholars in the fields of Ancient History, Archaeology, Egyptology, Patristics and History of Religions here explore some of the issues that have now come to the fore. The common concern is the interaction between discourses and practices relating to death, dying, the dead and their post-mortem existence, in the diverse and heterogeneous cultures of the ancient Mediterranean from Hellenistic to Roman Times.The volume is divided into three parts: "From Homer to Lucian Poetics of the Afterlife", "Individual Elaborations in the Roman Empire" and "Making a Difference: Groups and their Claims".Der Tod und das Individuum sind ein immer noch neues und vielversprechendes Forschungsfeld in der Antike. Elf internationale Forscherinnen und Forscher aus den Bereichen der Agyptologie, Alten Geschichte, Archaologie, Kirchengeschichte und Religionswissenschaft geben in ihren Beitragen erhellende Einblicke. Sie gehen der Frage nach, wie in den verschiedenen und heterogenen Kulturen des Mittelmeerraumes von hellenistischer bis in romische Zeit Diskurse und Praktiken, die sich auf den Tod, das Sterben, den Toten und das Leben im Jenseits beziehen, sich gegenseitig, aber auch das Individuum und die Individualitat selbst beeinflussten.Der Band ist in drei Teile untergliedert: "Von Homer bis Lukian Poetik des Jenseits", "Individuelle Auspragungen im Romischen Reich" und "Einen Unterschied machen: Gruppen und ihre Anspruche".