|
|
Loading... Athens: A History, From Ancient Ideal To Modern City (2004)| 110 | None | 247,277 | 
(3.25) | None | "Beginning with the classical period, when it reached its pinnacle of power and cultural genius, Athens: A History is peopled with fascinating individuals. Athens' remarkable ascent had been inspired by the ideals embodied in the ancient Olympic games, but the city deliberately turned its back on those ideals, in Athens' stunning rise and rapid fall lies a timeless tragedy of excessive pride brought low. Contrasting its noble ideals and arrogant actions, Waterfield finds in Athens' story a moral for all time - and vital lessons for the current era." "From its heyday in the fifth century B.C., Athens: A History traces the city's transformations under the yoke of foreign empires - Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish and Ottoman - and its revival as the capital of the newly independent nation of Greece. Today, it is a burgeoning European city, host of the 2004 Olympics and heir to a momentous historical and cultural legacy. From Pericles and Socrates to Lord Byron and Baron de Coubertin - founder of the modern Olympic games - this is a powerful, evocative history of a city whose glorious past continues to inspire the present."--Jacket.… (more) |
▾LibraryThing Recommendations ▾Will you like it?
Loading...
 Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. ▾Conversations (About links) No current Talk conversations about this book. ▾Series and work relationships
|
|
| Canonical title |
|
| Original title |
|
| Alternative titles |
|
| Original publication date |
|
| People/Characters |
|
| Important places |
|
| Important events |
|
| Related movies |
|
| Epigraph |
"There is no end to it in this city: / Wherever we walk, we set our feet upon some history." Lucius Cicero  "Were'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground; / No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, / But one vast realm of Wonder spreads around, / And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, / Till the sense aches with gazing to behold / The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon." Lord Byron "A Greek landscape does not give us - if we know how to listen and how to love - an innocent tremor of beauty. The landscape has a name, it is bound up with a memory - here we were shamed, here glorified; blood on sacred statues rises up from the soil, and all at once the landscape is transformed into rich, all-encompassing history, and the Greek pilgrim's whole spirit is thrown into confusion." Nikos Kazantzakis | |
|
| Dedication |
For Ingrid, with love | |
|
| First words |
Once every four years, from the traditional, though probably not authentic, starting date of 776 BCE, men from all over the Greek world, from Spain to the north African coast to the Black Sea, converged on Olympia. | |
|
| Quotations |
|
| Last words |
|
| Disambiguation notice |
|
| Publisher's editors |
|
| Blurbers |
|
| Original language |
|
| Canonical DDC/MDS |
|
| Canonical LCC |
|
▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions "Beginning with the classical period, when it reached its pinnacle of power and cultural genius, Athens: A History is peopled with fascinating individuals. Athens' remarkable ascent had been inspired by the ideals embodied in the ancient Olympic games, but the city deliberately turned its back on those ideals, in Athens' stunning rise and rapid fall lies a timeless tragedy of excessive pride brought low. Contrasting its noble ideals and arrogant actions, Waterfield finds in Athens' story a moral for all time - and vital lessons for the current era." "From its heyday in the fifth century B.C., Athens: A History traces the city's transformations under the yoke of foreign empires - Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish and Ottoman - and its revival as the capital of the newly independent nation of Greece. Today, it is a burgeoning European city, host of the 2004 Olympics and heir to a momentous historical and cultural legacy. From Pericles and Socrates to Lord Byron and Baron de Coubertin - founder of the modern Olympic games - this is a powerful, evocative history of a city whose glorious past continues to inspire the present."--Jacket. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
Current DiscussionsNone Google Books — Loading... |
1