Download or read book Overcoming Ptolemy written by Geoffrey C. Gunn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies on global metageography are enjoying a revival, and in no way is this better referenced than against the geo-world system bequeathed by Claudius Ptolemy almost two thousand years ago. This is all the more important when we consider the longevity of the Ptolemaic construct through and beyond the European age of discovery allowing as well for its eventual revision or refinement. Innovations in navigational science, cartographic representations, and textual description are all called upon to illustrate this theme. With its focus upon the macro-region termed India Extra Gangem, literally the space between India and China, the book unfolds a fourfold agenda. First, it explains the Ptolemaic world system back to classical points of reference as well as to its reception in late medieval Europe from Arabic sources. Second, it tracks the erosion of the Ptolemaic template especially in the light of new empirical data entering Europe from early travel accounts as well as the first voyages of discovery. Third, through selected examples, as with India, Southeast Asia, and China, it seeks to expose textual and cartographic adjustments to the classical models flowing from the scientific revolution.Fourth, through an examination of Jesuit astronomical observations conducted at various points in Asia, it demonstrates how Eurasia was actually measured and sized with respect to its true longitudinal coordinates such had deluded Columbus and even succeeding generations. In short, this work problematizes the creation of geographical knowledge, raises awareness as to the making of region in Asia over long historical time—the Ptolemaic world-in-motion—and, as a more latent agenda, sounds an alert as to the perils of overdetermination in the setting of modern boundaries whether upon land or sea.
Download or read book First Globalization written by Geoffrey C. Gunn and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2003-06-05 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Globalization presents an original and sweeping conceptualization of the grand cultural-civilizational encounter between Asia and Europe. Now largely taken for granted, the exchange resonates in multiple ways even today. Offering a 'metageography' of the vast Eurasian zone, Geoffrey C. Gunn shows how between 1500 and 1800, a lively two-way flow in ideas, philosophies, and cultural products brought competing civilizations into serious dialogue and mostly peaceful exchange. In Europe, the interaction was reflected in missionary reporting, cartographic representations, literary productions, and intellectual fashions, alongside the business of commerce and plunder (when it reached the Americas and peripheries). In Asia—-notably China, India, and particularly Japan—-European ideas and their bearers received a remarkably positive hearing when they did not challenge reigning orthodoxies. Ranging from discussions of the natural world, livelihoods, and religious and intellectual encounters to language, play, crime and punishment, gender, and governance, this book replays the themes of enduring hybridity and 'creolization' of cultures dating from the first great encounter between Europe and Asia.
Download or read book The Seleukid Empire 281 222 BC written by Kyle Erickson and published by Classical Press of Wales. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Seleukids, the easternmost of the Greek-speaking dynasties which succeeded Alexander the Great, were long portrayed by historians as inherently weak and doomed to decline after the death of their remarkable first king, Seleukos (281 BC). And yet they succeeded in ruling much of the Near and Middle East for over two centuries, overcoming problems of a multi-ethnic empire. In this book an international team of young, established scholars argues that in the decades after Seleukos the empire developed flexible structures that successfully bound it together in the face of a series of catastrophes. The strength of the Seleukid realm lay not simply in its vast swathes of territory, but rather in knowing how to tie the new, frequently non-Greek, nobility to the king through mutual recognition of sovereignty.
Download or read book The History of Ptolemy s Star Catalogue written by Gerd Graßhoff and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ptolemy's Almagest shares with Euclid's Elements the glory of being the scientific text longest in use. From its conception in the second century up to the late Renaissance, this work determined astronomy as a science. During this time the Almagest was not only a work on astronomy; the subject was defined as what is described in the Almagest. The cautious emancipation of the late middle ages and the revolutionary creation of the new science in the 16th century are not conceivable without reference to the Almagest. This text lifted European astronomy to the high standard of knowledge on which the new science flourished. Before, the Ptolemaic models of the orbits of the sun, the moon, and the planets had been refined by Arabic astronomers. They provided the structural elements with which Copernicus and Kepler ushered in the era of modern astronomy. The Almagest survived the destruction of its epicyclic representation of the planetary orbits in the conceptual traces left behind in the theories of its successors. The clear separation of the sidereal from the tropical year, the celestial coordinate systems, the concepts of time, the forms of the constellations, and brightness classifications of celestial objects are, among many other things, still part of the astronomical canon even today.
Download or read book Kings and Colonists written by Richard A. Billows and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1995 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on Macedonian imperialism in the 4th-2nd centuries BCE looks at the nature and origin of that imperialism, and for the first time examines closely the personnel of imperial control to see what the empire meant to them.
Download or read book Regnum Chinae The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735 written by Marco Caboara and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-10-24 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study reproduces and describes, for the first time, all the maps of China printed in Europe between 1584 and 1735, unravelling the origin of each individual map, their different printing, issues and publication dates.
Download or read book Chapters on Asia Selected papers from the Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship 2021 written by Benjamin J.Q. Khoo and published by National Library Board Singapore. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chapters on Asia features selected papers written by scholars who have been awarded the National Library’s Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship. These works examine the history and heritage of Singapore and the region, and contain fresh research based on the collections of the National Library and National Archives of Singapore. Chapter 1. The Circulation of Premodern Knowledge of Singapore and its Straits before 1819 / Benjamin J.Q. Khoo Chapter 2. Europeans in the Press: A Comparative Reading of the Representation of “Deviant” Behaviour in English and Chinese Language Newspapers in Singapore (1923–41)/Zhi Qing Denise Lim Chapter 3. Chinese Newspaper Literary Supplements in Singapore’s Postwar Literary Scene: The Roles of Xing Ying and Yao Zi/seah Cheng Ta
Download or read book In Asian Waters written by Eric Tagliacozzo and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping account of how the sea routes of Asia have transformed a vast expanse of the globe over the past five hundred years, powerfully shaping the modern world In the centuries leading up to our own, the volume of traffic across Asian sea routes—an area stretching from East Africa and the Middle East to Japan—grew dramatically, eventually making them the busiest in the world. The result was a massive circulation of people, commodities, religion, culture, technology, and ideas. In this book, Eric Tagliacozzo chronicles how the seas and oceans of Asia have shaped the history of the largest continent for the past half millennium, leaving an indelible mark on the modern world in the process. Paying special attention to migration, trade, the environment, and cities, In Asian Waters examines the long history of contact between China and East Africa, the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism across the Bay of Bengal, and the intertwined histories of Islam and Christianity in the Philippines. The book illustrates how India became central to the spice trade, how the Indian Ocean became a “British lake” between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and how lighthouses and sea mapping played important roles in imperialism. The volume ends by asking what may happen if China comes to rule the waves of Asia, as Britain once did. A novel account showing how Asian history can be seen as a whole when seen from the water, In Asian Waters presents a voyage into a past that is still alive in the present.
Download or read book The Heavens and the Earth Graeco Roman Ancient Chinese and Mediaeval Islamic Images of the World written by Vittorio Cotesta and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vittorio Cotesta’s The Heavens and the Earth traces the origin of the images of the world typical of the Graeco-Roman, Ancient Chinese and Medieval Islamic civilisations. Each of them had its own peculiar way of understanding the universe, life, death, society, power, humanity and its destiny. The comparative analysis carried out here suggests that they all shared a common human aspiration despite their differences: human being is unique; differences are details which enrich its image. Today, the traditions derived from these civilisations are often in competition and conflict. Reference to a common vision of humanity as a shared universal entity should lead, instead, to a quest for understanding and dialogue.
Download or read book Imagined Geographies written by Geoffrey C. Gunn and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-03 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagined Geographies is a pioneering work in the study of history and geography of the pre-1800 world. In this book, Gunn argues that different regions astride the maritime silk roads were not only interconnected but can also be construed as “imagined geographies.” Taking a grand civilizational perspective, five such geographic imaginaries are examined across respective chapters, namely Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and European including an imagined Great South Land. Drawing upon an array of marine and other archaeological examples, the author offers compelling evidence of the intertwining of political, cultural, and economic regions across the sea silk roads from ancient times until the seventeenth century. Through a thorough analysis of these five geographic imaginaries, the author sets aside purely national history and looks at the maritime realm from a broader spatial perspective. He challenges the Eurocentric concept of center and periphery and establishes a revisionist view on a decentered world regional history. This book will definitely interest history lovers from all around the world who wants to know more about how their forebears viewed their respective region and how their region fits into world history with local uniqueness. “Gunn takes large themes and makes them understandable. He is not afraid to make the grand statement, and to look at the sweep of history all in one arc. I admire that greatly; this is not history for the faint of heart. But it is history well-done, and history that can show the forest from the trees.” —Eric Tagliacozzo, John Stambaugh Professor of History, Cornell University “This is one of the most ambitious and insightful books that I have read on pre-Modern maritime Asia. The author offers fascinating perspectives on how this vast region was imagined, charted, and experienced over many centuries. That requires mastery of an immense range of scholarship and primary sources. His aim is to knit this watery world together into a conceptual whole. This mission is accomplished with style and discipline.” —Andrew R. Wilson, John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies, U.S. Naval War College
Download or read book Why Globalization Matters written by Barrie Axford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-24 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In what are generally understood as unsettled times, this book explores the possibility and desirability of bringing integrated theory back into globalization research. While there can hardly be a single and all-encompassing ‘grand theory’ of globalization-in-itself, is there scope for the development of a general and systematic approach to globalization dynamics, past and present? In other words, can theorizations of the global be holistic and integrative, taking place in tandem with methodological frameworks that consider the contradictory and uneven layering of different transnational practices across all social relations? Is it possible to develop a general and integrated approach to globalization that links theory and practice in a socially engaged way, and is it desirable to do so? Many relevant academic and non-academic developments suggest not. For example, the postmodernist turn at the end of the last century expressed a profound ‘incredulity’ toward ‘grand narratives’ in the social sciences and humanities. A decade later, some neo-Marxist critics condemned the ‘follies of globalization theory’. More recently, the ‘post-truth’ interventions of national populists suggest not only that ‘globalism’ is the political enemy but also that attempts to understand its patterns and manifestations are relative or irrelevant. Taking Manfred Steger and Paul James’ acclaimed book Globalization Matters as a back-drop against which to interrogate these issues, contributors from a variety of disciplinary, analytical and normative standpoints deliver a thoughtful and much needed assessment of the scholarship of globalization and the ways it is theorized. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.
Download or read book Asian Culture Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Volume II written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These two books offer readers a fresh perspective to re-examine and revaluate the so-called “China Threat” and the non-Western way of conducting foreign relations exercised by Asian countries due to the lasting impact of their traditional cultures on their diplomacy. 此書著為讀者提供全新視角來重新檢驗和評估所謂的”中國威脅論”和亞洲國家之非西方式外交及其傳統文化外交之影響.
Download or read book The Silk Road written by Tim Winter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Evocative and enigmatic, the Silk Road occupies a unique place in contemporary culture and international affairs. Across the world, it has captured the imagination as a story of camel caravans crossing desert and mountain, of precious goods moving between East and West, and of ideas, religions and technologies migrating across land and sea. As China seeks to "revive" the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century, this compelling, yet poorly understood, narrative of history now serves as a platform for building trade, diplomatic, infrastructure and geopolitical connections. "The Silk Road: Connecting Histories and Futures" is the first book to critically investigate the merits and problems of this fabled geocultural narrative of history, and map out the role it plays in international affairs. Four thematic sections trace its rise to global fame as a domain of scholarship and foreign policy, a celebration of peace and internationalism, and how it created dreams of exploration and grand adventure. China's Health Silk Road and civilizational politics are among the themes discussed that open up the Silk Roads as a space for critical enquiry"--
Download or read book Ptolemy s Quadripartite or Four Books concerning the Influences of the Stars Faithfully render d into English from Leo Allaccius i e from his Latin version of the paraphrase by Proclus and diligently compared with the best of other Greek copies and Latin translations To which is added variety of notes and annotations And also an appendix concerning Part of Fortune taken from the Pr mittends to the Italian Astrology and printed at the latter end of the last edition of Placidus de Titis his C lestial Philosophy at Milan 1675 By John Whalley written by and published by . This book was released on 1701 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Salamis of Cyprus written by Sabine Rogge and published by Waxmann Verlag. This book was released on 2019 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 2015 an international conference organised by the University of Cyprus and the Cypriot Department of Antiquities was held in Nicosia - a conference, which could well be called the largest ever symposium on ancient Salamis. During the three-day event some 60 scholars from many countries presented their current research on this important and spectacular archaeological site on the east coast of the island of Cyprus. Two generations of scholars met in Nicosia during the conference: an older one, whose relationship with ancient Salamis can be characterized as very direct, since many representatives of that generation had actively participated in the extremely productive excavations at that spot, until these activities came to an abrupt end in the summer of 1974 due to the Turkish invasion - and a younger generation, which is of course lacking this very direct contact. The conference successfully connected the older with the younger generation, and thus contributed to maintaining and renewing the interest in ancient Salamis. This richly illustrated book compiles most of the lectures presented during the conference. It might be regarded as a tribute to Salamis, an outstanding ancient city, which existed for more than one and a half millennia - eventually under the name of Constantia.
Download or read book Ptolemy of Egypt written by Walter M. Ellis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ptolemy was the creator of the longest lasting of the Hellenistic kingdoms. He created a state whose cultural importance was unparalleled until the coming of Rome. He encouraged the erection of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as well as creating a library which eventually contained the greatest collection of books until relatively recent times. Ptolemy's institution of higher learning, the Museum, gave birth to the greatest advancements in science before the seventeenth century of our own era. In this work, the first biography of Ptolemy in any language, Professor Ellis charts Ptolemy's extraordinary achievements in and beyond Egypt in the context of the fragmentation of Alexander's enormous empire and the creation of the Hellenistic state.
Download or read book Ptolemy s Africa written by W.F.G. Lacroix and published by TWENTYSIX. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ptolemy's map of Africa dates from the 2nd century AD. And for a long time it was thought that the Alexandrian geographer knew well the greater part of the continent, for it was only south of the equator that his information became scarce. But then, in 1863, the French geographer Vivien de Saint-Martin came to the conclusion that the Sudan - interpreted here as the area between the Sahara and the rain forest - had remained unknown to the Classical world. Even Ptolemy had no idea what it looked like there or which people lived there.To cover up his ignorance Ptolemy had put his rivers, peoples and towns far south of where they really belonged. And that is what historians believe up to this very day. But is this picture correct? Was Ptolemy the man to cover up his ignorance? Is Vivien de Saint-Martin's really a solid line of reasoning? Or have we perhaps to do here with some sort of wishful thinking? What could be more welcome in those days than an unknown African interior, a huge area waiting to be discovered, conquered, colonized and missionized? Could it be after all that the Sudan was part of the known world in Classical Antiquity? It all depends on whether or not this area is on Ptolemy's map of Africa. On a former work of Lacroix, Africa in Antiquity, the critic wrote: "Lacroix produces considerable evidence for his topographical identifications from an entirely new perspective, which should be considered by future scholars of the Geographia. Much discussion can ensue, and relevant information can be found there." - Journal of African History, 40, no. 3 (1999), p. 477-478.
