What The Greeks Did For Us

Author : Tony Spawforth
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300271808
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What the Greeks Did for Us written by Tony Spawforth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enjoyable, accessible exploration of the legacy of ancient Greece today, across our daily lives and all forms of popular culture Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,” a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,” or a replica of the Parthenon in a Chinese theme park, ancient Greek culture shapes the contours of our lives. Ever since the first Roman imitators, we have been continually falling under the Greeks’ spell. But how did ancient Greece spread its influence so far and wide? And how has this influence changed us? Tony Spawforth explores our classical heritage, wherever it’s to be found. He reveals its legacy in everything from religion to popular culture, and unearths the darker side of Greek influence—from the Nazis’ obsession with Spartan “racial purity” to the elitism of classical education. Paying attention to the huge breadth and variety of Hellenic influence, this book paints an essential portrait of the ancient world’s living legacy—considering to whom it matters, and why.

Author : Edith Hall
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393244121
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind written by Edith Hall and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, Independent The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold synthesis of the full 2,000 years of Hellenic history to show how the ancient Greeks were the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. Hall portrays a uniquely rebellious, inquisitive, individualistic people whose ideas and creations continue to enthrall thinkers centuries after the Greek world was conquered by Rome. These are the Greeks as you’ve never seen them before.

Author : Roderick Beaton
Publisher : Faber & Faber
ISBN 13 : 0571353584
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Greeks written by Roderick Beaton and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Monumental . . . A wonderful book.' Peter Frankopan'Magisterial . . . remarkable.' Guardian'Erudite and highly readable . . . An authoritative guide to the countless ways in which Greek words and ideas have shaped the modern world.' Financial TimesThe Greeks is a story which takes us from the archaeological treasures of the Bronze Age Aegean and myths of gods and heroes, to the politics of the European Union today. It is a story of inventions, such as the alphabet, philosophy and science, but also of reinvention: of cultures which merged and multiplied, and adapted to catastrophic change. It is the epic, revelatory history of the Greek-speaking people and their global impact told as never before.

Author : Anne Pearson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 45 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What Do We Know about the Greeks? written by Anne Pearson and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Paul Veyne
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226854342
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? written by Paul Veyne and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988-06-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of Greek mythology and a discussion about how religion and truth have evolved throughout time.

Author : Thomas E. Ricks
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062997475
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book First Principles written by Thomas E. Ricks and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Editors' Choice —New York Times Book Review "Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country." —James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew. First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

Author : Aristotle
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780140444315
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Athenian Constitution written by Aristotle and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1984-10-02 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probably written by a student of Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution is both a history and an analysis of Athens' political machinery between the seventh and fourth centuries BC, which stands as a model of democracy at a time when city-states lived under differing kinds of government. The writer recounts the major reforms of Solon, the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons, the emergence of the democracy in which power was shared by all free male citizens, and the leadership of Pericles and the demagogues who followed him. He goes on to examine the city's administration in his own time - the council, the officials and the judicial system. For its information on Athens' development and how the democracy worked, The Athenian Constitution is an invaluable source of knowledge about the Athenian city-state. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author : Simon Critchley
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1524747955
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us written by Simon Critchley and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moderator of The New York Times philosophy blog "The Stone," a book that argues that if we want to understand ourselves we have to go back to theater, to the stage of our lives Tragedy presents a world of conflict and troubling emotion, a world where private and public lives collide and collapse. A world where morality is ambiguous and the powerful humiliate and destroy the powerless. A world where justice always seems to be on both sides of a conflict and sugarcoated words serve as cover for clandestine operations of violence. A world rather like our own. The ancient Greeks hold a mirror up to us, in which we see all the desolation and delusion of our lives but also the terrifying beauty and intensity of existence. This is not a time for consolation prizes and the fatuous banalities of the self-help industry and pop philosophy. Tragedy allows us to glimpse, in its harsh and unforgiving glare, the burning core of our aliveness. If we give ourselves the chance to look at tragedy, we might see further and more clearly.

Author : Emily Katz Anhalt
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1503629406
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Embattled written by Emily Katz Anhalt and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive exploration of the way Greek myths empower us to defeat tyranny. As tyrannical passions increasingly plague twenty-first-century politics, tales told in ancient Greek epics and tragedies provide a vital antidote. Democracy as a concept did not exist until the Greeks coined the term and tried the experiment, but the idea can be traced to stories that the ancient Greeks told and retold. From the eighth through the fifth centuries BCE, Homeric epics and Athenian tragedies exposed the tyrannical potential of individuals and groups large and small. These stories identified abuses of power as self-defeating. They initiated and fostered a movement away from despotism and toward broader forms of political participation. Following her highly praised book Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, the classicist Emily Katz Anhalt retells tales from key ancient Greek texts and proceeds to interpret the important message they hold for us today. As she reveals, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, and Sophocles's Antigone encourage us—as they encouraged the ancient Greeks—to take responsibility for our own choices and their consequences. These stories emphasize the responsibilities that come with power (any power, whether derived from birth, wealth, personal talents, or numerical advantage), reminding us that the powerful and the powerless alike have obligations to each other. They assist us in restraining destructive passions and balancing tribal allegiances with civic responsibilities. They empower us to resist the tyrannical impulses not only of others but also in ourselves. In an era of political polarization, Embattled demonstrates that if we seek to eradicate tyranny in all its toxic forms, ancient Greek epics and tragedies can point the way.

Author : Bruce S. Thornton
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 1893554570
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Greek Ways written by Bruce S. Thornton and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2002-10-31 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing with wit and erudition, Thornton discusses in fascinating detail those areas of Greek life--sexuality and sexual roles; slavery and war; philosophy and politics--that some modern critics have made into Rcontested sites.S He also reclaims the importance of those core ideas the Greeks invented, ideas about human fate and purpose that have shaped the modern world.