Download or read book Herodotus and the Origins of the Political Community written by Norma Thompson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subtitle of this book is `Arion's Leap' and it is from this example of the puzzling fictionality of some of Herodotus' histories that the author starts her exploration (Arion was the singer who leapt into the sea to escape from Corinthian pirates and was rescued by dolphins). Scholars have long wrestled with Herodotus' practice of placing fanciful stories alongside factual ones, but Thompson suggests that rather than displaying a primitive conception of history, such a practice indicates a profound grasp of political theory and an understanding of the way that central stories can become the core of a political community. This major reconsideration of Herodotus' art draws his work into the modern historical debate, and the author uses the writings of Martin Bernal, Fran�ois Hartog and Edward Said to shed new light on Herodotus' conception of history.
Download or read book On Politics written by Alan Ryan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012 with total page 1147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the history of politics from Hobbes to the twenty-first century.
Download or read book History A Very Short Introduction written by John Arnold and published by Oxford Paperbacks. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought written by Stephen Salkever and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought provides a guide to understanding the central texts and problems in ancient Greek political thought, from Homer through the Stoics and Epicureans. Composed of essays specially commissioned for this volume and written by leading scholars of classics, political science, and philosophy, the Companion brings these texts to life by analysing what they have to tell us about the problems of political life. Focusing on texts by Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, among others, they examine perennial issues, including rights and virtues, democracy and the rule of law, community formation and maintenance, and the ways in which theorizing of several genres can and cannot assist political practice.
Download or read book Democracy and the History of Political Thought written by Patrick N. Cain and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a fresh perspective on current democratic theory and practice by recovering the rich evaluations of democracy in the history of political thought. Each author addresses a single thinker’s reflections on the virtues and defects of democracy and the relationship between democracy and other regimes. Together, these essays explore the tensions within the democratic way of life that arise from an attachment to equality, liberty, citizenship, law, and the divine. Above all, this work aims at recovering a more complex understanding of democracy, connecting the perennial questions of political philosophy to the perplexities and crises of modern democracy.
Download or read book Demokratia written by Josiah Ober and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the result of a long and fruitful conversation among practitioners of two very different fields: ancient history and political theory. The topic of the conversation is classical Greek democracy and its contemporary relevance. The nineteen contributors remain diverse in their political commitments and in their analytic approaches, but all have engaged deeply with Greek texts, with normative and historical concerns, and with each others' arguments. The issues and tensions examined here are basic to both history and political theory: revolution versus stability, freedom and equality, law and popular sovereignty, cultural ideals and social practice. While the authors are sharply critical of many aspects of Athenian society, culture, and government, they are united by a conviction that classical Athenian democracy has once again become a centrally important subject for political debate. The contributors are Benjamin R. Barber, Alan Boegehold, Paul Cartledge, Susan Guettel Cole, W. Robert Connor, Carol Dougherty, J. Peter Euben, Mogens H. Hansen, Victor D. Hanson, Carnes Lord, Philip Brook Manville, Ian Morris, Martin Ostwald, Kurt Raaflaub, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Barry S. Strauss, Robert W. Wallace, Sheldon S. Wolin, and Ellen Meiksins Wood.
Download or read book Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe written by Ann Ward and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dramatic changes have occurred in Europe in the past quarter century. The fall of communism and the expansion of liberal democracy, together with the desire to project a new “Europa” that is united, peaceful and prosperous into the future, illustrate that political philosophy is what grounds European political discourse and identity. Thus, an understanding of Europe’s political past and potential future directs us to the question: What is political philosophy? An exploration of the question of political philosophy points us back to Socrates, widely regarded as the first political philosopher, or the first philosopher to make human beings central to philosophic inquiry. Scholars such as Thomas Pangle suggest that a revival of the study of Socratic political philosophy will revive serious consideration of the questions of justice or how one ought to live, and demonstrate that classical rationalism is the essential dialectical partner and interrogator of the political theology of Scripture/scripture(s). Classical rationalism in this context is understood as a necessary alternative to modern liberalism, inadequate to the task of taking questions of justice seriously as it insists on regarding all religious claims and understandings of virtue as private preferences rather than definitive of the public sphere, and contemporary postmodernism, which has abandoned rationalism altogether by rejecting any truth claims not understood as relative. This volume explores Socratic rationalism, the major alternatives to it in the history of political philosophy, the potential impact of returning to it in contemporary times, and related themes. It takes a multifaceted approach with contributions from scholars in the fields of philosophy and political science.
Download or read book Herodotean Inquiries written by S. Benardete and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herodotus has so often been called, since ancient times, the father of history that this title has blinded us to the question: Was the father of history an historian? Everyone knows that the Greek word from which 'history' is derived always means inquiry in Herodotus. His so-called Histories are in quiries, and by that name I have preferred to call them. His inquiries partly result in the presentation of events that are now called 'historical'; but other parts of his inquiry would now belong to the province of the anthro pologist or geographer. Herodotus does not recognize these fields as distinct; they all belong equally to the subject of his inquiry, but it is not self-evident what he understands to be his subject: the notorious difficulties in the proemium are enough to indicate this. If his work presents us with so strange a mixture of different fields, we are entitled to ask: Did Herodotus under stand even its historical element as we understand it? Without any proof everyone, as far as I am aware, who has studied him has assumed this to be so.
Download or read book Refugees written by Nathan Bell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have never been more refugees, across the world from Myanmar to Syria, than at this moment. Many more millions of refugees are likely to be displaced by the effects of climate change. Why has politics failed to produce adequate responses to these challenges, and not heeded the lessons of refugee crises of the past? Are human rights and international law, or more radically, the case for 'open borders', sufficient to address them? Nathan Bell argues for nothing less than a new concept of the political: that societies (liberal or not, in the mode of the sovereign state or some other form) embrace an ethos of responsibility for others, where the right to seek asylum becomes foundational for politics itself. Such a proposal is at the antipodes of Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction, such that hospitality and not hostility forms the basis of political decision-making. This book comprises two halves: the first establishes the theoretical basis of the ethos of responsibility, with particular reference to the writings of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, while the second half examines these theorists in the context of historical and contemporary case studies. Finally, the book calls for a ‘politics of hauntology’ in memory of the missing - those who might have been rescued, and those yet to come, who are already among the disappeared. In this urgent work, Bell demonstrates that a radical reconfiguration of the understanding of politics is required in order to safeguard the future and human dignity of stateless persons.
Download or read book Political Dissent in Democratic Athens written by Josiah Ober and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2001-12-02 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since it was no longer self-evident that "better men" meant "better government," critics of democracy sought new arguments to explain the relationship among politics, ethics, and morality.
Download or read book The Mother of the Gods Athens and the Tyranny of Asia written by Mark H. Munn and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-07-11 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among maternal deities of the Greek pantheon, the Mother of the Gods was a paradox. Conflict and resolution were played out symbolically, Munn shows, and the goddess of Lydian tyranny was eventually accepted by the Athenians as the Mother of the Gods and a symbol of their own sovereignty.
Download or read book A Guide to Reading Herodotus Histories written by Sean Sheehan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern scholarship judges Herodotus to be a more complex writer than his past readers supposed. His Histories is now being read in ways that are seemingly incompatible if not contradictory. This volume interrogates the various ways the text of the Histories has been and can be read by scholars: as the seminal text of our Ur-historian, as ethnology, literary art and fable. Our readings can bring out various guises of Herodotus himself: an author with the eye of a travel writer and the mind of an investigative journalist; a globalist, enlightened but superstitious; a rambling storyteller but a prose stylist; the so-called 'father of history' but in antiquity also labelled the 'father of lies'; both geographer and gossipmonger; both entertainer and an author whom social and cultural historians read and admire. Guiding students chapter-by-chapter through approaches as fascinating and often surprising as the original itself, Sean Sheehan goes beyond conventional Herodotus introductions and instead looks at the various interpretations of the work, which themselves shed light on the original. With text boxes highlighting key topics and indices of passages, this volume is an essential guide for students whether reading Herodotus for the first time, or returning to revisit this crucial text for later research.
Download or read book The Persian Wars written by Herodotus and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2021-04-10 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herodotus, the great Greek historian, wrote this famous history of warfare between the Greeks and the Persians in a delightful style. Herodotus portrays the dispute as one between the forces of slavery on the one hand and freedom on the other. This work covers the rise of the Persian influence and a history of the Persian empire, a description and history of Egypt, and a long digression on the landscape and traditions of Scythia. Because of the comprehensiveness of this work, it was considered the founding work of history in Western literature. A must-have for history enthusiasts.
Download or read book Perceptions of Iran written by Ali M. Ansari and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation From the Sasanian to the Safavid Empire, and from Qajar Iran to the current Islamic Republic, the history of Iran is one which has been coloured by a rich tradition of myths and narratives and shaped by its wealth of philosophers, cultural theorists and political thinkers. Perceptions of Iran dissects the construction of Iranian identity, to reveal how nationalism has been continually re-formulated and how Iran's self-perception has been moulded by its literary past. Here, Ali M. Ansari gathers together a varied and wide-ranging account of the long history of Iranian encounters with the Western world, whether via the observations of Herodotus, or the knowledge – via the Old Testament – of Cyrus liberating the Jews from Babylon, or into the modern era when nineteenth and twentieth century interactions reflect the unequal power relationship between Iran and the West. Perceptions of Iran also explores the salient elements in the country's narrative which helped to form Iran's identity, such as Ferdowsi's creation of the Shahnameh – the national epic – the exquisite architecture of Safavid Isfahan or the unfulfilled promise of the Constitutional Movement in the early twentieth century. It offers analysis of the Qajar Shahs' use of a mythical and dynastic past, as they drew on the narratives of Jamshid's glory and Khusraw's splendour in order to legitimise their rule. At the same time, it examines the ways in which foreign travellers and diplomats understood and conceived of the royal courts of Safavid Persia. As it covers 2,500 years of political and intellectual history, Perceptions of Iran ties together the diverse threads of Iranian experience that have underpinned the country's social and cultural movements, spanning Mirza Agha Khan Kermani's writing on Persian history and liberal nationalism, through to the strident anti- Western discourses of Seyyed Jamal al-Afghani, Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ayatollah Khomeini. The book is therefore vital for researchers of Iranian history and those interested in the use of myth in the construction of national identity more widely.
Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism written by Ann Ward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive research companion examines the theory, practice and historical development of the principle of federalism from the ancient period to the contemporary world. It provides a range of interpretations and integrates theoretical and practical aspects of federalism studies more fully than is usually the case. The volume identifies and examines nascent conceptions of the federal idea in ancient and medieval history and political thought before considering the roots of modern federalism in the ideas of a number of important European political theorists of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. The contributors focus on the development and institutionalization of the principle of federalism in the American Republic and examine the historical development and central policy debates surrounding European federalism. The final sections investigate contemporary debates about theories of federalism and regional experiences of federalism in a global context including Africa, India, Australia, the Middle East, and North and South America. The scope and range of this volume is unparalleled; it will provide the reader with a firm understanding of federalism as issues of federalism promise to play an ever more important role in shaping our world.
Download or read book Speech in Ancient Greek Literature written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-06 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fifth volume of the Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative deals with speech: it discusses the types, modes and functions of speech in narrative, the boundaries between speech and narrative context, and the absence of speech (silence).
Download or read book Herodotus A Very Short Introduction written by Jennifer T. Roberts and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-23 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jennifer Roberts introduces the background and writing of the 5th century Greek thinker and researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who invented the genre of historical investigation. She discusses all aspects of his work, including his fascination with his origins; his travels; his interest in seeing the world; and the recurring themes of his work.
