The Use and Abuse of History
by M. I. Finley
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Few writers have taught us more about the ancient world than M. I finley. This provocative and wide-ranging collection of his essays contains illuminating discussions of some major issues: the nature of the Spartan state, the development of Greek law, mythological thinking in the Greek historians, utopian ideas old and new. Yet Finley's immense and detailed knowledge of ancient societies is matched by his equally challenging insights into far larger topics of historical technique (can show more archaeology and anthropology really teach us much about ancient history?), the dangers of easy generalizations (was there ever really a Greek nation?) and the ways in which we all use the past to deal with our present problems (why have political activists from Isocrates to Edmund Burke and F. D. Roosevelt all preached a return to some kind of 'ancestral constitution?) The final chapter considers the boldest question of all: what the classical tradition still has to offer and why it is still worth studying history and the ancient world. show lessTags
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This is a collection of essays on ancient history, the methodology of history and on some additional miscellaneous topics by Moses Finley. I enjoyed the first 6 essays, but the other 6 were just a bit too specialized or dealt with topics which weren't of much interest to me. If you have read Finley before and like his style, this one is worth reading as well. If not, you might want to look at his Ancient Economy, Ancient Politics or Ancient History: Evidence and Models before this one.
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1,820 works; 316 members
Author Information
49+ Works 5,118 Members
M. I. Finley, FBA, (1912-1986), was a major scholar of classics and ancient history. He taught at Columbia University and the City College of New York, where he was influenced by exiled members of the Frankfurt School, before taking a position at Rutgers University. Finley moved to England in 1955, taught classics at Cambridge, and became a master show more at Darwin College. His numerous works include the classic texts Aspects of Antiquity and The Ancient Economy. Finley was knighted by the queen for his contributions to scholarship in 1979. show less
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Aristotle, 384-322; Edmund Burke; Ernst Robert Curtius; Demosthenes; E. E. Evans-Pritchard; Herodotus (show all 13); Hesiod; Isocrates; Arnaldo Momigliano; Plato, ca. 428-347 BC; Polybius; Solon; Thucydides
- Important places
- Athens, Greece; Sparta, Greece
- First words
- Preface: Despite the diversity of subject reflected in these twelve essays, there is a common concern: the place (or uses) of the past, not only in the academy but also in cultural life, past an present, and in the narrower f... (show all)ield of politics and political argument.
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Statistics
- Members
- 185
- Popularity
- 177,664
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.06)
- Languages
- English, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 3
