Truth And History In The Ancient World
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Author | : Lisa Hau |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 531 |
Release | : 2016-11-03 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1317558049 |
This collection of essays investigates histories in the ancient world and the extent to which the producers and consumers of those histories believed them to be true. Ancient Greek historiographers repeatedly stressed the importance of truth to history; yet they also purported to believe in myth, distorted facts for nationalistic or moralizing purposes, and omitted events that modern audiences might consider crucial to a truthful account of the past. Truth and History in the Ancient World explores a pluralistic concept of truth – one in which different versions of the same historical event can all be true – or different kinds of truths and modes of belief are contingent on culture. Beginning with comparisons between historiography and aspects of belief in Greek tragedy, chapters include discussions of historiography through the works of Herodotus, Xenophon, and Ktesias, as well as Hellenistic and later historiography, material culture in Vitruvius, and Lucian’s satire. Rather than investigate whether historiography incorporates elements of poetic, rhetorical, or narrative techniques to shape historical accounts, or whether cultural memory is flexible or manipulated, this volume examines pluralities of truth and belief within the ancient world – and consequences for our understanding of culture, ancient or otherwise.
Author | : Matthew Fraser |
Publisher | : Rowman & Littlefield |
Total Pages | : 459 |
Release | : 2020-03-27 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1633886255 |
From ancient Rome to the current Internet age, this sweeping history of ideas explores how different epochs wrestled with the issue of truth and lies. From the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern era, how have people determined what is true? How have those with power and influence sought to control the narrative? Are we living in a post-truth era, or is that notion simply the latest attempt to control the narrative? The relationship between truth and power is the key theme. Moving through major historical periods, the author focuses on notable people and events, from well-known leaders like Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler to lesser-known individuals like Procopius and Savonarola. He notes distinct parallels in history to current events. Julius Caesar's publication of his Gallic Wars and Civil Wars was an early exercise in political spin not unlike what we see today. During the English Civil War and the Enlightenment, pamphleteering coupled with the new power of the printing press challenged the status quo, as online and social media does in our time. And "fake news" was already being used by German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in nineteenth-century Europe and by the "yellow journalism" of American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer near the turn of the twentieth century. The author concludes optimistically, noting that we are debating and discussing truth more fiercely today than in any previous era. The determination to arrive at the truth, despite the manipulations of the powerful, bodes well for the future of democracy.
Author | : Susan Wise Bauer |
Publisher | : W. W. Norton & Company |
Total Pages | : 897 |
Release | : 2007-03-17 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0393070891 |
A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own. This is the first volume in a bold series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. Dozens of maps provide a clear geography of great events, while timelines give the reader an ongoing sense of the passage of years and cultural interconnection. This old-fashioned narrative history employs the methods of “history from beneath”—literature, epic traditions, private letters and accounts—to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled. The result is an engrossing tapestry of human behavior from which we may draw conclusions about the direction of world events and the causes behind them.
Author | : Christopher Gill |
Publisher | : Liverpool University Press |
Total Pages | : 292 |
Release | : 1993 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : |
These essays explore the understanding of the boundary between fact and fiction in Ancient Greece and Rome and considers how far 'lying' was distinguished from 'fiction' in different periods and genres. Early Greek poetry, Plato, and Greek and Roman historiography and novels are covered.
Author | : Robert Benjamin Lewis |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 414 |
Release | : 1844 |
Genre | : Black race |
ISBN | : |
Author | : Matthew Fraser |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2020 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 9781633886247 |
From the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern era, how have people determined what is true? The complex relationship between truth and power is the key theme in this book. Moving through major historical periods. Matthew Fraser traces the tumultuous saga of truth and falsehood from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern era to find distinct parallels between past and present. The book examines how notable people and events-from famous leaders such as Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler to lesser-known figures like Procopius and Savonarola-exploited the enduring tension between truth and lies. Julius Caesar's publication of Gallic Wars was an early exercise in political spin, not unlike what we see in politics today. During the English Civil War and later in the Enlightenment, the printing press empowered a new culture of pamphleteering that challenged the status quo, just as social media networks are doing in our internet era today. In the late nineteenth century, "fake news" was already being manipulated by German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and in the "yellow journalism" promoted by American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. The author concludes optimistically, contending that-despite the manipulations of the powerful-we are debating and discussing truth more fiercely today than in any previous era. While the current crisis over truth appears to be threatening liberal democracy, our determination to arrive at the truth is a sign we are committed to reaffirming its fundamental values. Truth is remarkably resilient. Book jacket.
Author | : John Arnold |
Publisher | : Oxford Paperbacks |
Total Pages | : 152 |
Release | : 2000-02-24 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 019285352X |
Starting with an examination of how historians work, this "Very Short Introduction" aims to explore history in a general, pithy, and accessible manner, rather than to delve into specific periods.
Author | : Gareth L. Schmeling |
Publisher | : BRILL |
Total Pages | : 920 |
Release | : 2021-12-28 |
Genre | : Literary Criticism |
ISBN | : 9004496432 |
From classics and history to Jewish rabbinic narratives and the canonical and noncanonical gospels of earliest Christianity, the relevance of studying the novel of the later classical periods of Greek and Rome is widely endorsed. Ancient novels contain insights beyond literary theories and philosophical musings to new sources for understanding the popular culture of antiquity. Some scholars, in fact, refer to ancient novels as “alternative histories,” for they tell history implicitly rather than with the intentional biases of the historian. The Novel in the Ancient World surveys the new approaches and insights to the ancient novel and wrestles with issues such as the development, transformation, and christianization of the novel (Spirit-inspired versus inspired by the Muses). This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.
Author | : Michael Grant |
Publisher | : Barnes & Noble Publishing |
Total Pages | : 518 |
Release | : 1994 |
Genre | : Historians |
ISBN | : 9781566195997 |
Grant offers a study of the primary historians of Greece and Rome, discussing the works and methods of the founders of the historical discipline. These philosophers studied history as a moral discipline that bears meaningfully not only on the past but on future human conduct.
Author | : Catherine Nixey |
Publisher | : HarperCollins |
Total Pages | : 373 |
Release | : 2018-04-17 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0544800931 |
A New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, Spectator, Observer, and BBC History Magazine, this bold new history of the rise of Christianity shows how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizations. The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to "one true faith." Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyrs' deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless, and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth, and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the first century to the sixth, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial, and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces, and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written, and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.