Princeton's press website has a few very inteesting new titles I thought I might share with you, such as:

428 AD
An Ordinary Year at the End of the
Roman Empire
Giusto Traina
With a preface by Averil Cameron
“This is one of those
books for which one
has longed for a very
long time. Only by
the decision to place
one year on the map
of an entire segment
of Europe and the
Middle East is it
possible to seize the
full dynamics of the
history of the later
Roman Empire. . . .
This is truly a book
which opens a window on to the world of late
antiquity.”
—Peter Brown, author of Augustine of Hippo: A
Biography
This is a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean
world from the Atlantic to Persia during the last
half-century of the Roman Empire. By focusing
on a single year not overshadowed by an epochal
event, 428 AD provides a truly fresh look at a
civilization in the midst of enormous change—as
Christianity takes hold in rural areas across the
empire, as western Roman provinces fall away
from those in the Byzantine east, and as power
shifts from Rome to Constantinople. Retracing
the kind of route a contemporary gazetteer might
have taken, Giusto Traina describes the empire’s
people, places, and events in all their simultaneous
richness and variety. The result is an original
snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of
the medieval era.
Giusto Traina is professor of Greek history at the
University of Rouen.
June 2009. 224 pages. 10 maps.
Cl: 978-

AND

Civilizations of Ancient Iraq
Benjamin R. Foster &
Karen Polinger Foster
“Original and
unique, this ambitious
grand survey
provides a refreshing
history of ancient
Iraq in its entirety in
one brief and accessible
volume.”
—Marc Van De
Mieroop, author of
King
Hammurabi of Babylon:
A Biography
In Civilizations of
Ancient Iraq, Benjamin and Karen Foster tell the
fascinating story of ancient Mesopotamia from
the earliest settlements ten thousand years ago
to the Arab conquest in the seventh century. Accessible
and concise, this is the most current and
authoritative book on the subject. With illustrations
of important works of art and architecture
in every chapter, the narrative traces the rise and
fall of successive civilizations and peoples in Iraq
over the course of millennia—from the Sumerians,
Babylonians, and Assyrians to the Persians,
Seleucids, Parthians, and Sassanians.
Ancient Iraq was home to remarkable achievements.
One of the birthplaces of civilization, it
saw the world’s earliest cities and empires, writing
and literature, science and mathematics, monumental
art, and innumerable other innovations.
Civilizations of Ancient Iraq gives special attention
to these milestones, as well as to political, social,
and economic history. And because archaeology
is the source of almost everything we know about
ancient Iraq, the book includes an epilogue on the
discovery and fate of its antiquities. Compelling
and timely, Civilizations of Ancient Iraq is an
essential guide to understanding Mesopotamia’s
central role in the development of human culture.
Benjamin R. Foster is professor of Assyriology
and curator of the Babylonian Collection at Yale
University. Karen Polinger Foster is lecturer in
ancient Near Eastern and Aegean art at Yale.
July 2009. 288 pages. 21 halftones. 1 line illus. 2 maps.
Cl: 978-0-691-13722-3 $26.95 | £15.95

Catalogs online at:

http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/hist...
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs.html

Awesome! Thanks dude

Wow! Thanks!

Great thread idea, Garp. You rock.

Hello new favorite thread!

Well I suppose I may as well post a couple and their book descriptions:

(I just picked up the first one--haven't read it yet--but I'm sure it'll be great)
"AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State" by Charles Freeman (out now)

"In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of God; all other interpretations were now declared heretical. It was the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Yet surprisingly, the popular histories claim that the Christian Church reached a consensus on the Trinity at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. Why has Theodosius's revolution been airbrushed from the historical record?

In this groundbreaking new book, acclaimed historian Charles Freeman shows that the council was in fact a sham, only taking place after Theodosius's decree had become law. The Church was acquiescing in the overwhelming power of the emperor. Freeman argues that Theodosius's edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire, but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, as Freeman puts it, was "a turning point which time forgot."

===============================

"The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West" by Tom Holland (out 5 May)

"In AD 900, few would have guessed that the splintering kingdoms of Christendom were candidates for future greatness. Hemmed in by implacable enemies on three sides, and by ocean on the fourth, it seemed that the Christian people had nowhere to turn. Indeed, there were many who feared—cast in the Millennium’s shadow—that they were nearing the time when the Antichrist would appear, drowning the world in blood and heralding its end.

But the Antichrist did not appear, and Christendom did not collapse. Instead, forged from the convulsions of those terrible times, there emerged a new civilization as the Christian people set to the heroic task of building a Jerusalem on earth themselves. With an epic sweep that transports us from the crucifixion to the First Crusade, and from the glitter of Constantinople to the bleak shores of Canada, Tom Holland’s The Forge of Christendom is a brilliant study of a truly fateful revolution: the emergence of Western Europe for the first time as a distinctive and expansionist power.

It was the age of Otto the Great and William the Conqueror, of Caliphs and Viking sea-kings, of hermits, monks, and serfs. It witnessed the spread of castles, the invention of knighthood, and the founding of a papal monarchy. Above all, it brought people to fear that the end days might be at hand, and yet also—with an effort so prodigious that it has the power to move us still—to invent themselves anew.

A momentous achievement: for this was nothing less than the founding of the modern West. It is an epic story that Tom Holland renders with the narrative skill and wide-angled scope of a novelist and the careful scholarship a historian. It will transform its readers’ conception of the origins of the Modern West."

=================================

"How Rome Fell: Death of A Superpower" by Adrian Goldsworthy (out 5 May... OR, available with an alternative title --like so many of Goldsworthy's books, for whatever reason-- already out as of 26 Feb, "Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower")

"In AD 200, the Roman Empire seemed unassailable. Its vast territory accounted for most of the known world. By the end of the fifth century, Roman rule had vanished in western Europe and much of northern Africa, and only a shrunken Eastern Empire remained. What accounts for this improbable decline? Here, Adrian Goldsworthy applies the scholarship, perspective, and narrative skill that defined his monumental Caesar to address perhaps the greatest of all historical questions—how Rome fell.



It was a period of remarkable personalities, from the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius to emperors like Diocletian, who portrayed themselves as tough, even brutal, soldiers. It was a time of revolutionary ideas, especially in religion, as Christianity went from persecuted sect to the religion of state and emperors. Goldsworthy pays particular attention to the willingness of Roman soldiers to fight and kill each other. Ultimately, this is the story of how an empire without a serious rival rotted from within, its rulers and institutions putting short-term ambition and personal survival over the wider good of the state."

EDIT: Hmm, some of the touchtones aren't working... bummer.

Message edited by its author, Mar 3, 2009, 8:41pm.

Thanks Feicht. I'm especially interested in the last one. Personally, I'd be willing to get the edition already out, regardless of the title variation.

I believe Amazon lists the UK as well as the US editions, and that explains why they'll have ostensibly the same book, but with slightly different title/cover with a different release date. Thing is, the one that comes out earlier always costs more.

Admittedly I don't know much about book publishing but it's the best explanation I can come up with, haha. I mean, I bought a version of Holland's Persian Fire in Ireland, purposely doubling up on a book I already had just so I had something to read, but I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't different enough to warrant owning two versions of the same book :-D So yeah I guess I could see how different "regions" have their own editions or whatever.

But yeah, Goldsworthy is especially weird though because it seems like every single book he's ever written has multiple versions with different titles, but its the same book. Throws me off every time I check Amazon :-D

Holland's The Forge of Christendom has been available for a while under the title: Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom.

My point exactly :-)

Amazon just told me about another one:

Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer by Robin Lane Fox

The eighth century B.C. was the formative age of the great epics of Homer, a remote and, in some ways, mysterious era. In this groundbreaking book, Robin Lane Fox takes us into that time before history to explore questions ranging from the origins of the Greek gods to the spread of classical culture in the Mediterranean world. It is a remarkable tour de force of scholarship and creative reasoning, written with flair and the authority gained from a lifetime of study and personal experience of key sites.

Presented as a kind of historical detective story, Travelling Heroes draws upon archaeology, ancient texts, and new discoveries to develop a fresh and provocative thesis: that migrants from in the Greek island of Euboea settled in specific places both in the Near East and in Italy and that what they found there helped shape their most distinctive myths. In fascinating detail, Lane Fox describes the journeys of the travellers and the contacts they made with Phoenicians, Assyrians, and the people of north Cyprus and Syria, and he shows the way they drew themes—and even references to particular topographic features—into what would become the classic stories of gods and legend. He also offers new insights into Homer himself.

Robin Lane Fox is probably the most widely read historian of the ancient Greek world, and Travelling Heroes displays the same lively originality that marked his writing about the Bible in The Unauthorized Version and about the triumph of Christianity in Pagans and Christians. Learned but never dry, controversial but soundly based, it brings a distant and nearly forgotten time brilliantly to life again.

=============================

Sounds promising...

funny... i was just reading about the Euboian colonies in Rhegium and Cumae this past weekend.

Feicht, I wonder how Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer will turn out . . . I read Fox's bio of Alexander back in the 1980's and I absolutely loved it, but I was less than enthralled by his more recent The Classical World: An Epic History From Homer to Hadrian which seemed to be all over the place and not especially inspiring. It was a very long book and I finished it, so I guess it wasn't that bad, but it was no Tom Holland!

Dude, speaking of Tom Holland... I'm thinking that guy might be my favourite author ever. It just feels "refreshing" to read his books in my spare time as opposed to the crusty stuff I have to read for school sometimes.

I mean, even Tacitus gets me bogged down after a while, and as ancient historians go, he's pretty much the best. It's just like, if you're reading the Annals of Imperial Rome without looking for something specific, some overarching theme... it's just easy to get lost in the cavalcade of names/dates/places.

Holland, on the other hand, is like reading a novel that you "can't put down" except it's all real!

Message edited by its author, Mar 25, 2009, 8:28pm.

I have only read Persian Fire -- one of my all time favorite history books ever -- but I will get to the rest one day. I am saving "Rubicon" for when I get into Roman history down the road.

Rubicon was the first of his I read, absolutely amazing. I hereby decree that you stop reading whatever you are reading now, and go out and buy a copy or two :-D

Well Feicht, if you insist, I don't see how I can disobey ... but I can't really abandon the other 6 books -- they would be hurt ...

;-)

So there I have at the top of the pile Rubicon, Maps of Time and 1491, all unread. Where to go first? Flip a coin? Better idea: don't go to work until I've finished all three!

Read all three at the same time! I do better when I have 5 going at once. Maps of time is definitely too dense for a cover-to-cover straight read -- lots to think about, so I have read it slowly over months in order to inhale it slowly ... 1491 is a bit less complicated of a read, but a lot of material there too. If Rubicon is anything like Persian Fire then its probably a page-turner!

Just found another one that looks promising:

Blood In The Forum: The Struggle for the Roman Republic by Pamela Marin

In Blood in the Forum, Pamela Marin offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on the complexities of the late Republic and the rise of Octavian. The book deals with how Roman politics, the desire for personal glory, and the inadequacies of the Republican system ultimately led to Caesar's dictatorship.

Marin assigns a crucial role to Cato the Younger in the political narrative, which differs from conventional views, but allows for a clearer understanding of the allegiances of the civil war and the assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March 44 BCE. Drawing from the most recent scholarship, this engaging narrative pulls the reader into the ancient Roman world, presenting the tragedy of the Roman Republic in its true light.

Well this isn't "history" per se but it's worth a mention for anyone who is into ancient/medieval literature:

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a previously unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien, written while Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford during the 1920s and ‘30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It makes available for the first time Tolkien’s extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigurd the Völsung and The Fall of the Niflungs. It includes an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien, drawn from one of his own lectures on Norse literature, with commentary and notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ref=pe_...

Message edited by its author, Apr 14, 2009, 9:25pm.

Feicht, you're entirely right about Holland's Rubicon; his pacing is better than most of the novels I've read lately. I never felt like he was wandering off into guesswork, but it was an extraordinarily vivid historical account. He avoids both academic dryness and semi-fictionalised "Caesar flushed pale" prose.

Yesterday, I went to Amherst Books and came out with: "Histoires Grecques: Snapshots From Antiquity" by Maurice Sartre (in English translation). Brand new -- have not seen it anywhere before. It looks really cool -- a survey of Greek civilization from Theseus to the murder of Hypatia in 415 CE.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SARHI...

Found a new one that sounds awesome:

"Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy" by John R. Hale

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670020...

The navy created by the people of Athens in ancient Greece was one of the finest fighting forces in the history of the world and the model for all other national navies to come. The Athenian navy built a civilization, empowered the world’s first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on a voyage of discovery that altered the course of history. Its defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 BCE launched the Athenian Golden Age and preserved Greek freedom and culture for centuries. With Lords of the Sea, renowned archaeologist John Hale presents, for the first time, the definitive history of the epic battles, the indomitable ships, and the men—from extraordinary leaders to seductive rogues—who established Athens’s supremacy. With a scholar’s insight and a storyteller’s flair, Hale takes us on an illustrated tour of the heroes and their turbulent careers and far-flung expeditions and brings back to light a forgotten maritime empire and its majestic legacy.

Message edited by its author, May 1, 2009, 5:34pm.

How ironic -- I am listening to this guy's Teaching Company Course right now: The greek & Persian Wars. I'm midway thru & this guy is great! I think I may add this book to my TBR

Well there ya go :-D

Hey speaking of that Teaching Company stuff... well, podcasts, anyway... I've been listening to this "Hardcore History" one and I love it! I have a sinking feeling the guy might have...slightly different...political views than me, but whatever; he sure knows how to tell a story.

>26
I just listened to my first one -- the guy does manage to stay interesting. I think I'll listen to more.

What I hate is on audio you want to have an easy way to back up ten or twenty seconds if you missed something or want to hear it again. I have quicktime on my computer, and there's no way to go back by a reliable amount. I end up having to go back a minute or more. I'm going to have to investigate a better way.

Like a portable mp3 player? :-D

Actually mine is a pain in the ass because for some reason whenever I download podcasts, and want to store them in a regular folder with the music and whatnot, like half of the tracks go where they're supposed to, and the other half create their own folder in the "podcast" section of my player, no matter what I do. It is frustrating, to say the least. But I digress ;-)

No. I have never had a need of such a player. I listen to audio only in my car (in which case it's books on tape or Teaching Co or other lectures) or on my computer. Anywhere else, I will read an actual book.

No, that's wrong. I will play CD's on my audio system too.

Perhaps I am still living in a world of stone knives and bearskins.

Message edited by its author, May 2, 2009, 12:44am.

Well I thought I was the last person in the western world to get one, so I guess not :-D

I don't have a car stereo, and I listen to music on walks, bike, etc... definitely more convenient than the dark ages of "portable" cd players and whatnot

For cycling, I have a thing about wanting to hear the actual crunch of metal on metal, just before the speeding car barrels into me.

Change that to "I want to remain alert to danger when riding."

Haha... I dunno... beforehand I thought it would be the most dangerous thing imaginable, but I mean unless you have the volume up unnecessarily loud, you can still hear "the outside world" :-)

Yeah, I had a car for a few months with a broken radio & I used to listen to my MP3 player with headphones while I was driving and I could hear the outside world quite well, surprisingly enough

Message edited by its author, May 2, 2009, 12:04pm.

Though now that I think of it, years of heavy metal fandom has given me the hearing of a 90 year old man anyway, so I probably shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery in the first place haha

CURSE YOU, ROB HALFORD!!!!1!11!

Message edited by its author, May 2, 2009, 12:08pm.

...And another:

The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome by Christopher Kelly

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393061...

A bold new account of Attila the Hun as empire builder and political threat to Rome. Conjuring up images of savagery and ferocity, Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarianism. But, as the Romans of the fifth century knew, Attila did more than just terrorize villages on the edge of an empire.

Drawing on original texts, this riveting narrative follows Attila and the Huns from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the opulent city of Constantinople and the Great Hungarian Plain, uncovering an unlikely marriage proposal, a long-standing relationship with a treacherously ambitious Roman general, and a thwarted Roman assassination plot. Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome reframes the warrior king as a political strategist, capturing the story of how a small, but dedicated, opponent dealt a seemingly invincible empire defeats from which it would never recover.

3 maps; 40 illustrations

Message edited by its author, May 7, 2009, 9:18am.

I've just seen this title at work and thought it might be of interest here.

A World History of Ancient Political Thought, by Antony Black.

"This book examines the political thought of China, Greece, Israel, Rome, India, Iran, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and also early Christianity, from prehistory to c. 200 CE. Each of these had its own priorities, based on a religious and philosophical perspective. This led to different ideas about who should govern, how to govern, and what government was for .... This book covers political philosophy, religious ideology, constitutional theory, social ethics, official and popular political culture."

That sounds fascinating!

Another title I saw at work, again potentially of interest here. (Link points to Amazon.com rather than a touchstone, as there is no LT touchstone as of yet.)

Roman Passions: A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome, by Ray Laurence.

I dont know, i keep on reading tom holland look for the references. he seems to know what people think but no footnotes to see how he came to that conclusion. has too many years of studying history at university made me unable to read popular history again????

>39 That does affect any author's credibility, do doubt about it.

Yeah - I've sort of had Holland on my list but no footnotes=no purchase.

Unfortunate.

My copy of Persian Fire has a thick sheaf of notes at the end of the text. What edition do you have?

Yeah dude, every Holland book I have has crazy amounts of endnotes in it!

publishers please take note;

footnotes belong at the bottom of the relevent page, NOT at the end of the book where they are awkward to get at.

thank you for your time.

With all due respect my good friend Enodia, I disagree. Footnotes on the bottom are small-print and awkward and often sprawl from one page to another. It may be a bit inconvenient to get to the back of the book, but it makes for a better narrative flow, unless the note is an essential addendum to the text.

David Foster Wallace may have been a genius, but his obsession with footnotes really turned me off to his writing.

In scholarly writing, I realize we need to expect footnotes at the bottom, but one of the issues with scholarly writing is that it is often so dull and poorly written that the footnotes are a welcome distraction.

I prefer footnotes. I've learned to live with endnotes - I just need to stick an extra bookmark where the notes are and while it's a pain, I can at least flip back to them fairly quickly and not lose the narrative too badly.

I consider abbreviated endnotes to be a perversion of all that is good and holy.

"David Foster Wallace may have been a genius, but his obsession with footnotes really turned me off to his writing."

You insult the master?! I'd be offended, except he wouldn't mind. In fact he often said he did it precisely in order to interrupt the narrative flow:

(They) "allow . . . me to make the primary-text an easier read while at once 1) allowing a discursive, authorial intrusive style w/o Finneganizing the story, 2) mimic the information-flood and data-triage I expect’d be an even bigger part of US life 15 years hence. 3) have a lot more technical/medical verisimilitude 4) allow/make the reader go literally physically ‘back and forth’ in a way that perhaps cutely mimics some of the story’s thematic concerns . . . 5) feel emotionally like I’m satisfying your request for compression of text without sacrificing enormous amounts of stuff.”

Not liking my history so fractured, I prefer footnotes to endnotes. But not in fiction. There I'd rather let the author do whatever (s)he wants.

Message edited by its author, May 20, 2009, 12:37pm.

> 43 - 46: In general I prefer footnotes to be just that - footnotes not endnotes. But with certain authors - Erwin Panofsky springs to mind - you sometimes get two or three lines of actual text with several pages of "footnotes" smack in the middle of your book. Not nice at all. Even though he lived out the most productive time of his life in the US, he essentially always remained an old school German scholar. What can you do...

To me it doesn't matter which format they are, as long as they're there. Footnotes are cool, but if they're really long it's just easier for them to be at the back as endnotes.

I always like references in texts (in line). I thought I might like discursive footnotes at the foot and specialist footnotes (long chains of references, for example) at the end.

In recent reading, namely How to Read the Bible, I found the division of footnotes, although not quite as I just suggested, left me ignoring the substantive notes at the back. Reading Indo-European Myth and Religion in light of that I'm finding that, annoying as it is to leave the narrative for a reference at the bottom of the page, I can do it without using full attention (dismiss it when I see all italics and numbers) and with turning on full attention when the footnote has content.

So the ideal for me is: references in line and footnotes at the foot.

Robert

yep, ideally i'm with you Robert.
i don't like really extended footnotes that interrupt the flow of the read, but turning pages to endnotes does that anyway.

but i have to agree with Feicht too... the bottom line is they MUST be there somewhere or i can't take the reference seriously, so endnotes are better than no notes.

>50
I'd be more likely to read the Bible if God had provided written footnotes.

Hahahaha

ZING!!!

I'd settle for a turn and wink at the audience after the first instance of one story which contradicts another one :-D

#52 Stellar -- ROTFL

Interestingly, te best compromise I've seen is the hardcover The Landmark Herodotus that I just bought: oversize with "footnotes" in the margin and at the bottom so there's plenty of room, the notes are easy to reference, and they're right there for you.

In reflection on my earlier comment, I will have to modify a bit. I suppose if the note is a "source" note I don't care where it is, but if it is an actually elucidation on the text I think it has to be on the same page. So maybe I'm contradicting myself?

Message edited by its author, May 20, 2009, 7:56pm.

I recently read The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister, a book that borders on being a hagiography (suitably for the YA crowd).

It was interesting because the notes were indented and in italics between paragraphs. I thought it was an interesting approach, and I thought it worked well because these were mostly notes that clarified what was going on in the narrative -- although apparently it annoyed some reader/reviewers.

Oh, I think I'd like that technique very much. Looking at the notes, the eyes are never far from the material they are enhancing, and it breaks things up a bit when one wants to come back to find something.

I don't know; the very nature of footnotes is that they break up the narrative flow.... that's why they're in the footnotes and not the actual text! But I still like them. Books like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and lots of the Loeb Classical Library books have great footnotes that are more than just a reference, they actually discuss key points or problems in/with the text. I love it. Today I read Tacitus' Germania in one sitting and all the added footnotes with detail on the peoples that Tacitus couldn't have known was amazing. :-)

I don't mind footnotes or endnotes (the latter are why we created the bookmark). However, for endnotes, they really must be marked somehow. Too often I've seen books where the endnotes are there but organized by page number, making it difficult to determine what note goes with what.

Going back to the original topic, there's a book I've seen in the stores lately that looks interesting:

The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe From 400 to 1000 by Chris Wickham

The blurb is (Amazon.com):
Prizewinning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a middle period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought.

Sweeping in its breadth, Wickham’s incisive history focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed the remarkable Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires, and peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo- Saxons, and Vikings. Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean. The Inheritance of Rome brilliantly presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created.

The book is already available in stores in Canada, btw if you can't wait.

That book sounds cool, thanks for mentioning it :-D

#58 - I've been told that book is an adaptation of his Framing the Early Middle Ages where he took the material from the earlier book and put it into more of a narrative format. If it is, it should be good. Framing contains an amazing amount of information.

It looks really good. I've been poking at it in the store for the last week or so.

New Irish source translation. Not ancient but some people may be interested.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/irel...

You know, we might be able to write the publisher and get a group rate for the book if enough of us order it. I don't know if the offset would be enough to cover the additional mailing costs. Anyone know?

Saw another interesting looking new book today:
Why Socrates Died by Robin Waterfield.

According to the indigo.ca website, the book came out just a couple of days ago.

The Ancient Egyptian State: The Origins of Egyptian Culture (c. 8000-2000 BC), by Robert J. Wenke. (Title touchstone doesn't route correctly.)

Ethnicity and Foreigners in Ancient Greece and China, by Hyun Jin Kim. (No touchstones. Title is not out yet in the U.S.)

Edit to oust the overly aggressive Italics.

Message edited by its author, Jun 17, 2009, 12:55pm.

Neat, those sound awesome!

I just finished another relatively new book on ancient (and a bit of medieval) history that I thought was quite good: Adrienne Mayor's Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs.

It certainly is making me rethink some of my beliefs (and what I'd been taught) about ancient history.

A scorpion bomb is about the worst thing I can think of.

Actually, I'm not sure if I think the scorpion bomb or the incident with catapulted jugs of vipers and other poisonous snakes is worse mentally.

There were plenty of other nasty inventions discussed as well.

Actually, I'm not sure if I think the scorpion bomb or the incident with catapulted jugs of vipers and other poisonous snakes is worse mentally.

I though the dead critters into the wells were the worst for some reason.

I continue to be floored by the number and variety of ways that people find to cause each other grief and death.

I think I will add this to my ever burgeoning TBR

Here are a couple of new, slightly erotic books with information about them from the authors, themselves: just arrived at H-Histsex ... two cover the 17th and 18th centuries, and one Horace's Rome.

From: Julie Peakman mailto:juliepeakman@btinternet.com
Sent: Thu 18/06/2009 10:33
Subject: Re: What should we be reading this summer?

Thank you, Dan, for inviting authors to suggest their own works. I will
therefore immodestly suggest my own book 'Lascivious Bodies. A Sexual
History of C18th' for an easy introduction to sex in the C18th: it includes
courtship, marriage, prostitution, same-sex relationships, cross-dressing,
and sexual perversions.

Another suggestion for the summer (for other scholars) is my edition of
scholars new essays:
Sexual Perversions, 1680-1890 (Palgrave, due August 2009) covering
paedolphilia, sodomy, traibadism, S&M, necrophilia, bestiality, etc.

I am also interested in hearing about any new books and articles out on
sexuality (any period from ancient to C21st) 2007-9, and when they come out,
so authors, please do let us know.
best wishes
Julie Peakman

School of History, Classics & Archaeology
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street, Bloomsbury
London WC1E 7HX

And a second
From: Yvan Nadeau mailto:yvannadeau@btinternet.com
Sent: Thu 18/06/2009 9:24
Subject: Re: What should we be reading this summer?

I am not sure that the list will be in interested in this: I have
recently had published a book about the erotic poetry of Horace, entitled:

Yvan NADEAU, / "Erotica for Caesar Augustus - A study of the love-poetry
of Horace, /carmina/, Books I to III"/ /, /Éditions Latomus, Bruxelles
2008,

I am no expert in sexuality as an -ism, but I write about and probe what
is being said about sex at a particular time in a particular political
climate; who the women are who are being written about; are they
"professionals" (hetairai) or are they women of good family? who are the
boys who are the subject of the paederastic poems: where do they fit
into Roman life of the time of Augustus? or are they pure literary
fiction? How does Horace's treatment of those erotic themes fit into (a)
the aristocratic society of Augustus' time (b) Augustus' attempts at
moral-sexual reform of Roman society by legislation? I am interested in
the relation between this love-poetry and the discourse of Roman Elegy.

If list readers find this interesting, I would be pleased, and pleased
too to have their reactions (on or off list) if they do read the book.

yn

Yvan Nadeau
yvannadeau@btinternet.com
3/13 Forrest Hill
EDINBURGH EH1 2QL
0131-225-8240
http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/staff/hon_fello...

Healey D. wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> As Fran Bernstein has recently mentioned her own book - and discussed its contents, too modestly in my view - in the threads on course syllabi, I thought I would mention that the list is always happy to hear from authors and editors of list-relevant new books about their work. We don't post publishers' blurbs: we want to hear from the author(s), and generate onlist discussion.
>
> If you have recently published a book or significant work, 1400 people on this list may want to read your work, and a reflective or provocative statement from you about your publication on H-Histsex is welcome. What should we be reading this summer?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan Healey
> H-Histsex co-editor

If anyone's into the Osprey series of books, this might be of interest:

Roman Military Dress by Graham Sumner

Despite the great interest in the Roman Army, particularly in the many re-enactment societies, up until now it has been surprisingly difficult to find out information about the uniforms they wore and the textiles that were used in those uniforms. Graham Sumner’s book redresses this balance, presenting in an informative and accessible way the evidence for the types of clothing utilized by the Roman soldier. With full scale color illustrations drawn by the author, who is an experienced historical illustrator, along with patterns and diagrams of clothing finds and information on the latest archaeological studies, this book provides a comprehensive insight into the development of the Roman soldier’s uniform from the Late Republic to the advent of the Byzantine Empire.

Yeah, I'll be picking this one up... hehehe

Oh and it's over 200 pages, so it's not just like a puny Osprey guide; it looks like an actual "book" book :-D

Message edited by its author, Jun 19, 2009, 9:44am.

That looks like a wonderful gift for a Roman re-enactor friend of mine. :)

Here is a title I ran across at work, which may be of interest to some: Rhetoric and Centers of Power in the Greco-Roman World: From Homer to the Fall of Rome, by John Edward Tapia. (No touchstones.)

Edited to add another:

Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: Images and Insights from the Venetus A Manuscript of the Iliad. Edited by Case Dué. Publisher, Center for Hellenic Studies (Harvard University). (No touchstones.)

Message edited by its author, Jun 19, 2009, 1:40pm.

Re Holland and footnotes/endnotes. sure he has a FEW and I mean a few at the end of the book, but i just randomly opened Rubicon to page 209, where it dealt with the end of the Catiline Conspiracy, and not a reference to be seen. From page 207-213, pages buirsting with description, not a single reference. I cant imagine Ronald Syme or Fergus Millar or A B Bosworth, ancient historians of the top shelf, going a paragraph without a reference, let alone about 5 and a halfpages!

Yeah but there's also a reason Rubicon is fun to read, while reading Syme is like reading a 300 page technical description on how to wax your bathroom floor, with passing mention of every human being who has ever waxed a floor interrupting the flow of said description every 2 paragraphs. :-D

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 7:19am.

Roman Southwark settlement and economy: Excavations in Southwark, 1973-91. Carrie Cowan, et al. London : Museum of London Archaeology, 2009. (No touchstone yet, so I made a link to Amazon.com.)

How they get "SUTH-uck" out of that is beyond me, btw :-D

Suthuck? Isn't that one of Lovecraft's globulous, menacing monsters? :D

(Is that actually how the natives pronounce the area's name? Along the lines of "WOOST-uh"/Worcester?)

or "Lester" for Leicester?

ahh yes, these are my people... lol!

Any opinions on the book Legionary by Philip Matyszak?

At any rate, it looks to be pretty new. I hadn't seen it in stores before the last month.

Yeah Essa... I had no idea when they were talking about "SUTH-uck" Cathedral that they were thinking about the same thing I was, until my guided tour was standing right in front of it and I put 2 and 2 together, haha :-D

Mind you I guess we Americans should be used to this kind of thing, since the English founded so many of our towns, named after their bafflingly pronounced ones... you mentioned "WUSS-tah" already... and of course there's "POTS-muth", "NAW-fukk" (a personal fave), "PLIM-uth"..... the list goes on ;-)

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 4:18pm.

I always wondered why is Worcester is WUSS-tah why is Dorcester not DUSS-tah?

Good question... I know where the "-cester" comes from, but not sure what the linguistic reason is for the different pronunciation.

And another: Asceticism in the Graceo-Roman World, by Richard Finn. Published by Cambridge University Press, in the "Key Themes in Ancient History" series. (No touchstone yet, as book is not yet published.)

Edited to remove link to Amazon.com -- I don't work for Amazon (or Cambridge, or etc.) and don't want people to think I am marketing or spamming or something. I just thought the title might be of interest to some of the readers here.

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 1:10pm.

>77
Feicht, you're hilarious.

Inside the City in the Greek World: Studies of Urbanism from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period, ed. by Sara Owen and Laura Preston. Published by Oxbow Books. (No touchstone yet.)

Two more (no title or author touchstones yet):

Greek Painting Techniques and Materials: From the Fourth to the First Century BC, by Ioanna Kakoulli. Archetype Publications.

Pliny's Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World, by Jacqueline M. Carlon. Cambridge University Press.

Thanks Essa, they sound fascinating.

If anyone enjoys archaeological study, this may be of interest: Cambourne New Settlement: Iron Age and Romano-British Settlement on the Clay Uplands of West Cambridgeshire. (Wessex Archaeology Report No. 23). ISBN 9781874350491.

Edited to add: It contains information from prehistoric, Saxon and medieval periods as well.

Message edited by its author, Jul 13, 2009, 7:37pm.

Greek Literature in the Roman Empire, by Jason König. Bristol Classical Press.

More. I'm hoping all these are not annoying. :-/ It's just that I see so many interesting new/pre-pub titles here at work, and wish to pass them on to others here (just as I myself have been apprised of great books by the kind people on LT).

Function and Ethnicity: 'Bathtubs' from Late Bronze Age Cyprus, by David Collard. Oxbow Books.

The Splendor of Roman Wall Painting, by Umberto Pappalardo. J. Paul Getty Museum. (Abridged, more affordable version of the 2004 Domus: Wall Painting in the Roman House.)

Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee, by Uzi Leibner. Mohr Siebeck.

Not annoying in the least. Keep 'em coming!

Yes, please keep them coming. You're making me dream along the lines of "if only I had an unlimited budget and unlimited wall space..."

Yessss!

>34 "years of heavy metal fandom has given me the hearing of a 90 year old man anyway"

Please tell me it's good metal you're listening to - Megadeth, Metallica or Pantera (if thrash)...or at least Judas Priest, Iron Maiden or Sabbath...!

What are your thoughts on symphonic metal viz., Kamelot, Epica, Nightwish?

> 97 Well, he did mention Rob Halford, so presumably Judas Priest was part of his metallic diet at some point. :) And lovers of both metal and early music ought not to miss the beautiful album Sabbatum, by the Estonian early-music group Rondellus -- a collection of Black Sabbath tunes translated into Latin and sung in early medieval fashion. Not only cool, but actually very beautiful too.

Oh, and a new book: Politics and Society in Imperial Rome, by Aloys Winterling. Wiley-Blackwell.

Newly out and/or upcoming. :)

Popular Culture in Ancient Rome, by Jerry Toner. Polity Press.

The Archaeology of Lydia, from Gyges to Alexander, by Christopher H. Roosevelt. Cambridge University Press.

Haha yeah Delsni and Essa.... "good metal" :-)

Admittedly I listen to all kinds, so some of it might not be your cup of tea, but I generally can't stand a lot of the new stuff from America in the 90s and whatnot. Right now my favourite type at the moment is "folk metal", European bands like Moonsorrow, Vintersorg, Manegarm, Ulver, etc. But yeah everything from Priest and Maiden (and Sabbath, though I really feel the Ozzy years get too much emphasis by "posers" these days), to Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, to Amon Amarth, Emperor, Opeth... you name it :-)

But like I say, I can't stand any of the utter garbage that was popular in the late nineties and maybe even is today, but I'm not in highschool anymore so I don't have much of a grip on what's "cool" these days ;-) But hell, none of the music I listen to was "cool" then either, so whatever!

Oh and to be fair, I also listen to classical and folk as well :-D

Feicht, you may like a Scandinavian folk metal band called Korpiklaani. (sp?)

Of course I would :-)

(Good thing I don't have a pic of me in the tour shirt on my laptop, or my smartass quotient would be going through the roof right now :-D )

A few more:

The Villanovan, Etruscan, and Hellenistic Collections in the Detroit Institute of Arts, by David A. Caccioli. Brill.

Symbols of Wealth and Power: Architectural Terracotta Decoration in Etruria and Central Italy, 640-510 B.C., by Nancy A. Winter. University of Michigan Press.

The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry, by Peter Bing. University of Michigan Press.

Feicht -- I hate metal. All metal. And I hate rap. And I especially hate country which I am convinced causes a brain damage so severe that country listeners are unable to perceive it. But I love your comments and your journal blog and all that is Feicht for good and ill so keep posting, man. You are entertainment!

More new/upcoming Greco-Roman goodness:

Greek Tyranny, by Sian Lewis. Bristol Phoenix Press.

Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents (NGSL 2). 2nd edition with a postscript, by Eran Lupu. Brill.

Roman Philosophy and the Good Life, by Raymond A. Beilliotti. Lexington Books.

the Lewis book looks especially promising

Garp you old fuddy duddy :-P

hahaha

For what it's worth, I hate rap too. Except for that "Big Butts" song. That's just gold :-D

I thought that was "Baby Got Back."

Well you see how much of a rap connoisseur I am... haha

(humorous?) New book: The Ascent of Man by Richard Guy


Bronx, NY - Aug 10, 2009 - Announcing the release of a fascinating new book.

This book will forever alter your perspective on the history of ancient civilizations. The

author gives amazing insights into, how and why, all ancient civilizations evolved in high

mountain regions around the world.

We have perhaps never given any thought to this fact. This is because historians were

never aware of a mysterious historical anomaly. As a result we have all been mislead

about the development of ancient civilizations.

Read this book to find out how civilizations really originated and developed. You will be

amazed.

No matter where you live on our Planet, Guy shows you practical historical references

that relate to your area.

The Ascent of Man by Richard Guy

ISBN: 978-0-9629018-3-6

Publisher: Institute of the Expanding Earth

Date of publish: Aug 7, 2009

Pages: 134

S.R.P.: $16.50

===========

Well... it's a new book.

: }

Message edited by its author, Aug 10, 2009, 4:27pm.

That looks like a fabulous book.

He does it all in 134 pages! Brevity is a virtue; it is also a surprise.

Robert

>122
Very succinct, rdurick! :-)

Maybe I shouldn't comment without reading it, but... "all ancient civilizations evolved in high mountain regions around the world"? Really? High mountain regions like Mesapotamia, a swampy lowland? Mountain regions like Egypt, which was actually underwater for a third of the year?

Reading Selections from Peter Brown's Augustine of Hippo here:

http://payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/...

A 500 page masterpiece with short chapters so easy to forge through. The new epilogue in the 2000 reprint relates new archeological evidence that has emerged since its first publication back in the 60's.

One anecdote I recently read about its creation is even more fascinating and should be told to every masters thesis research scholar: “Turns out that Brown had not developed any special interest in Augustine until the end of his undergraduate studies. Being pressed for a thesis topic, with a deadline approaching, he picked Augustine almost at random. He then set about to master Augustine, and in just two years ended up writing the definitive bio that changed the field forever.” Is that a hoot or what? Another vote for “Follow your passion.

It is my blog BTW -- some people seem to take offense at recommendations like these, calling them "spam." The post is too long for here so hence the link. Peace.

jayd

Well, there you go Cynara. No wonder it all remains a mystery to you (and me, and I guess everyone else here). You've been thinking the Mesopotamians and Egyptians had civilizations because of the trade and construction and writing and whatnot. You were swayed from witnessing the obvious; that civilization started in the Alps, when the first primitive humans pushed together some rocks to construct the first crude lending institute.

Message edited by its author, Aug 12, 2009, 9:16pm.

I heard something about a big boat ride that ended on a mountain in Turkey. Figured that was where this came from. Folks get off the boat, start partying a little and voila - mountaintop civilization!

You never know how those cruises will turn out.

>117
Backing up ever so slightly, what was the role of the cultivation and processing of grains? Later we hear that Noah became inebriated, but is it credible that this was the first time? No doubt Noah used fermented grain products, had many such parties, and later chose to record the details in a form more explicable to the prohibitionists of the time: "A vision from the Lord made me do it..."

That missing book from Thomas Cahill: How Getting Drunk Made Civilization

Message edited by its author, Aug 15, 2009, 12:13pm.

HAHAHA!!!

Noah was absolutely not the first. For the first, you have to go back to the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve get an apple that makes them think they're smarter when in reality they behave in a manner which isn't good for them, don't follow clear instructions issued by authority and mouth off to the owner until they get kicked out of an establishment? Heck, they behave so abominably that the owner has to hire a bouncer (for eternity, no less) just to keep them from getting back in!

I think it's clear that in that story what the OT writer so quaintly calls an apple is really beer.

or hard cider.

Between Villa and Town: Excavations of a Roman roadside settlement and shrine at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire
by Steve Lawrence and Alex Smith
Oxford Archaeology (publisher)
Oxford Archaeology Monograph (series), No. 7
ISBN 978-0-904220-44-5

This volume presents the results of archaeological investigations of this Roman settlement, along with other excavated prehistoric sites in the local area, including Mesolithic activity, a late Neolithic/early Bronze Age ring ditch and a middle Iron Age settlement.

Spartans: A New History
by Nigel M. Kennell
Wiley-Blackwell (publisher)
ISNB 978-1-4051-2999-1 (hbk.)
ISBN 978-1-4051-3000-4 (pbk.)

Wow, Essa, that one's a bit steep in price. $75 bucks (there about) and not that many pages. Still I covet...

True. But (a) because I work around academic book titles, anything less than triple-digit prices actually feels "cheap," now; and (b) based on the threads here and in the other history groups about people's book-buying habits, it seems that, for many LTers, money is no object when it comes to feeding their addiction. :D (Alas, I do not fall into that category, or not anymore. To pinch pennies these days, I'm getting as many books as possible from the libraries.)

Anthony Everitt has a new book on Hadrian out as of today.

Looks interesting.

Thanks for that Elena. Looks very interesting.

His biography of Cicero is one of my favourite books. I have his following bio of Augustus, but as I rashly bought it in hard-back, I've yet had the opportunity to read it. I find it quite a bit more difficult to read HBs... :-)

I've got both those too, and I haven't read them yet either (And I bought the Hadrian book yesterday).

The cover of the Augustus book annoys me though. I'm almost certain the background is the roof of the Pantheon, which IIRC, wasn't built yet at the time of Augustus.

You're right, it wasn't until the 2nd century. For me though, even if it's just the ceiling of another building with coffers in it, the fact that they would use that as opposed to a cool Romantic Period painting, or sculpture or something is kind of a disappointment.

I have to be honest, but this strikes me as an unusually trivial thing at which to be annoyed. The cover of my copy of Cicero, for example, has a picture of his bust (if you know what I mean). The picture of the Pantheon doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

Were one to demand historically accurate, relevant and appropriate jackets only, most of our books would need recovering.

Trivial it is, but that wouldn't stop me from being bothered by it either. Not that I'm proud of it :-)

Omaca, it's not like I'm losing any sleep over it :-P

It's just a point of discussion, that's all ;-) One would think there would be dozens of other things the publisher could've thrown on the cover that would have at least had some relevance to the man in question...

And dozens of others that would have been equally or more annoying. For instance, there could be a banner across the top proclaiming this part of the "Benevolent Dictators Series".

At least that'd be kind of amusing :-D

Rhetorical Exercises from Late Antiquity: A Translation of Choricius of Gaza's Preliminary Talks and Declarations; with an epilogue on Choricius' reception in Byzantium
edited by Robert J. Penella
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-521-84873-2

(from the book jacket)
Produced by a team of eight scholars, this is the first translation of the Declamations and Preliminary Talks of the sixth-century AD sophist Choricius of Gaza. Declamations, deliberative or judicial orations on fictitious themes, were the fundamental advanced exercises of the rhetorical schools of the Roman Empire, of interest also to audiences outside the schools. Some of Choricius' declamations are on generic themes (e.g., a tyrannicide, a war-hero), while others are based on specific motifs from Homeric times or from classical Greek history. The Preliminary Talks were typical prefaces to orations of all kinds.

This volume also contains a detailed study of Choricius' reception in Byzantium and Renaissance Italy. It will be of interest to students of late antiquity, ancient rhetoric, and ancient education.

Edited to correct a typo.

Message edited by its author, Sep 3, 2009, 1:24pm.

And another:

From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East
edited by Hannah M. Cotton (et al.)
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-521-87581-3

Oh wow, that one sounds intriguing! Naturally I'm sure it's over 100 bucks though :-D

Message edited by its author, Sep 4, 2009, 6:48pm.

Drool!

I was referring to myself, there. :-D

$117 pre-ordered from Amazon

Have you read the Penella book, Essa?

> 141 Alas, no, I haven't. It is not yet available on the market (it is available for pre-order on retailers, e.g., Amazon etc.). It was one of many such titles I see at work. I thought it sounded interesting, and I figured that other readers here might find it of interest, also. :)

This is dangerous. After 10-plus years Amazon has finally figured out what kind of books I like. I won't mention 'em here because they're Early Medieval/Late Antiquity but if this keeps up my budget could have some issues.

I have no idea when it's going to come out, but in one of my classes we're reading the manuscript for a new translation of Prokopios' "The Secret History" by the professor's friend A. Kaldellis. It's pretty good, everyone should keep an eye out for it :-) His translation keeps the wittiness and vitriol of Prokopios, not to mention including tons of "Related Texts" and great footnotes on every page!

I have just pre-ordered From Hellenism to Islam and Spartans: A New History...I will cross my fingers that they will be a good read.

Message edited by its author, Sep 13, 2009, 3:49am.

> 145 Let us know how they are!

This just out:

Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations
edited by Michael Dietler and Carolina López-Ruiz
University of Chicago Press
ISBN 978-0-226-14847-2

That sounds amazing!

I didn't type the table of contents as it was too long/didn't have time, but it can be viewed on the publisher page. I thought it sounded very interesting.

Edited for link and to make grammatical sense.

Message edited by its author, Sep 22, 2009, 6:13pm.

"Light from the East"... awesome! :-D

Yeah I've always been really into this "indigenous Europeans" thing. Whenever we think of aborigines, we are invariably drawn to the natives of Australia or the American Indians, but we tend to forget that Europe used to very similar. I like to imagine the same sense of awe and curiosity present with the early Celts or Lusotanians as would have existed amongst the Native Americans when the first ships started showing up.

Three more -

Medical Analogy in Latin Satire
by Sari Kivistö
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-0-230-22812-2

Discourse Cohesion in Ancient Greek
edited by Stéphanie Bakker and Gerry Wakker
Brill
ISBN 978-90-04-17472-6

Art and Society in Cyprus from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age
by Joanna S. Smith
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-521-51367-8

I wonder, Feicht, whether Kaldellis' Secret History isn't going to be too filled with Kaldellis' own pet theories - he hardly writes sine ira et studium. The notes will be most interesting, but will they be dependable? I wasn't convinced by much of his Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History, and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity, though he himself was very helpful when I discussed Procopius with him.

Message edited by its author, Oct 1, 2009, 8:14am.

I see that both Rhetorical Exercises from Late Antiquity and From Hellenism to Islam are on the shelves of Blackwells here in Oxford.

Message edited by its author, Oct 1, 2009, 8:13am.

And here is another:

Water Engineering in the Ancient World: Archaeological and Climate Perspectives on Societies of Ancient South America, the Middle East, and South-East Asia
by Charles R. Ortloff
ISBN 978-0-19-923909-2
Oxford University Press

Shikari, his notes in the manuscript I read were great (in my opinion) so I can only imagine the finished product will be even better :-)

There's also a nice introduction and "related works" at the back that make good bookends for the work.

This recent title looks interesting:

Bathing in the Roman World
by Fikret Yegül
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-521-54962-2

That last one does look interesting. Will have to keep an eye out.

Ran across this -- Hannibal: Rome's Worst Nightmare -- and it is absolutely FABulous. It's a Scholastic book by Philip Brooks. Can't recommend it enough for Middle-School and holder peeps who want a mini lesson on the Barcas.

The book has an engaging format, WITH MAP!, and it's well written to boot. I haven't written a review yet, but plan to shortly. (did I just doom that review's timeliness?)

Message edited by its author, Oct 6, 2009, 10:54am.

Haha... you can't go wrong with a series called "Wicked History"! :-D

I know, is that great marketing or what.

(Actually at the end, the author tries to put the kibosh on the 'wicked' aspect, putting the violence in context... as it were.)

I've scanned the previous messages to see whether this book has been mentioned before. Please forgive me if it is there and I missed it.

I had the catalog of World History from Oxford University Press in this morning's mail and started to look at it while my computer started up. Among the best sellers was After Alexander edited by Georgina Hermann which promises to be "crucial for our understanding of the ancient and early medieval world." That struck me as probably interesting, but not so much as to send off my check for $120 on speculation.

I saw above that Garp, in message 1, mentioned Civilizations of Ancient Iraq by Foster and Foster and that Essa, in message 136, mentioned From Helenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East edited by Hannah M. Cotton. Do any of you know whether there is a particular comprehensive authority on the subject?

Robert

I just lifted the new titles from their website. I haven't read it so unfortunately I do not know. Sorry.

Mr.Durick, I unfortunately have not read those books, and am not an authority on the ancient Near and Middle East, or ancient Middle Eastern linguistics, or interactions of the Roman Empire and the ancient Middle East. So I am unable to recommend such a book. If I come across such a book, I will certainly mention it, though (I'd be interested in it, myself).

This one sounds interesting: Problems in the History of Ancient Greece: Sources and Interpretation by Donald Kagan

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Problems-History...

I don't know. Maybe. I'm torn by Kagan because he is one of the foremost scholars of ancient Greece but he's also a right-winger & he often injects his modern day spin into his interpretation of that era.

I try to put it in perspective because it's really something we all do. But I find a lot of the stuff he says outright annoying.

He has a problem with allowing the unwashed masses to vote, does he?

Haha...something like that

Kagan wrote some good books. And the Problems in Ancient History series is excellent.

This new one went straight on my wishlist.

Message edited by its author, Oct 25, 2009, 8:00am.

Well Kagan's not as bad as say Paul Johnson, who seems to admire Mussolini, but there is strong evidence for his political bent in his writings. It's not that it isn't sometimes tempting to view the Athenian Empire vs. the Peloponnesian League in modern terms, but it is wrong as a historian to get carried away with this in your historiography and to read our political sphere back in time when you are dissecting ancient events for a wider audience. In other words, what may be permissible for an editorial, short essay or cocktail party blather should not be allowed to infect the narrative of the history book you write.

It used to really irritate me when folks try to draw parallels between a culture from 1500-2500 years ago and modern western civilization - the concept is just so ridiculous. I've gotten to where it's pretty easy to ignore now. Frex, I know that Kagan includes that in his books but I can't tell you exactly what he says - I just skim over those parts. His The Peloponnesian War is still probably the best overview on the subject. I'd hate to miss it just because he likes to go off and editorialize every now and then.

Agreed. Which is why I haven't stopped reading him but I sometimes cringe ...

By the way, I downloaded all of his lectures from Yale in video for free for his Introduction to Greek History. He is a terrible lecturer!!!!! Much better in writing!

Someone on another thread actually wrote that the "thought and behavior of classical Greeks mirrors our modern world." Preposterous!

There is a case to be made that there are echoes in our modern world of "thought and behavior of classical Greeks" -- that is not preposterous at all. At the same time, we must be carefful not to read too much into the past through the prism of our own experiences. Right-wingers forever compare any negotiation with the Hitler-Chamberlain appeasement, but that is just stupid, for there has been nothing similar to that in the years since. The idea that there may be similes in an ancient league of democracies facing off against an ancient league of authoritarians and modern semi-equivalents isn't crazy. Many other than Kagan have made the case and it has some merit. My point is that this is better left to editorials than to the writing and study of history.

Humans of any era have an awful lot in common, don't you think? Substitute any culture of any time and I think it would not be controversial to say "the thought and behavior of culture X has great similarity to our own". Not that there aren't unique features, but having these human brains in common tends toward other affinities.

True but there is a difference between saying something like.... "the sack of the Acropolis was like the Athenian's 9/11"........and trying to justify your conservative economic vision of American society by the actions of the Delian League.

No question. Just making a point that does need saying from time to time...

To Garp83:

Yes, you are right that right-wingers "forever compare any negotiation with the Hitler-Chamberlain appeasement...".
Such misinterpretation does usually come from the Right, but I know of one such that came from the far Left: Chinaʻs take on the Kennedy/Khrushchev settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. We like to think of it as Kennedy standing up to the dictator, and Khrushchevʻs backing down ("the other guy blinked", as Sec. Rusk put it).
As the Chinese "political scientist" saw it,
Kennedy had the Hitler role in 1962ʻs repeat of
Munich:1938. Khruschev and the Soviet Union were the appeasing Western Deocracies that Chamberlain and Deladier had led in 1938, and Fidel Castroʻs Cuba was the "Czechoslovakia" of 1962.

Differences, of course: the truncated Czechoslovkia produced by Munich survived "Munich:1938" for only six months, whereas a Castro-led Cuba survives to this day. I donʻt suppose that either Chamberlain or Khrushchev was aware of having "blinked".

The lesson of even a flawed comparative scenario such as Chinaʻs on Munich/Cuba is that, while we may exaggerate, see far-fetched similarities, ,and ignore differences, we may also be blind to the most ominous of similarities.

Message edited by its author, Oct 26, 2009, 2:16am.

Excellent point roland

This might be interesting:

Adoption in the Roman World
by Hugh Lindsay
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-52176050-8

Edited: title removed. It was about the 14th-18th centuries, not ancient/classical history, which I would have noticed if I'd been more alert. Sorry. (Note to self: Sleep first, then LibraryThing.)

Message edited by its author, Oct 30, 2009, 12:22pm.

There's a new Kagan book out:

Thucydides: The Reinvention of History
by Donald Kagan

"Thucydides: The Reinvention of History"
by Donald Kagan

A Freudian slip by Dr Kagan? ;-)

Although I didn't post in the thread until now, I've been following it with great interest, and taking note of the always good suggestions.

Sorry if it's out of topic, but is there any good book recommendation on the Tiberius period?

It's 2000 years old and biased as all hell, but Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome is a good place to start.

If you're going to include Tacitus you about have to include Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars.

Though his Caligula chapter is what always grabbed me, especially (paraphrasing) "So much for his career as a statesman. Now let us look at his career as a monster."

Not sure about secondary works.

@Feicht: Thanks for your recommendation but I was looking for something a little less "raw", if you know what I mean. :)

@cemanuel: Thanks for your recommendation also. I have Suetonius book, but I've only read it til Caligula. The sentence you cited is slightly different from what I have in my portuguese translation.