Download or read book Myths of the Archaic State written by Norman Yoffee and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking work, Norman Yoffee shatters the prevailing myths underpinning our understanding of the evolution of early civilisations. He counters the emphasis in traditional scholarship on the rule of 'godly' and despotic male leaders and challenges the conventional view that early states were uniformly constituted bureaucratic and regional entities. Instead, by illuminating the role of slaves and soldiers, priests and priestesses, peasants and prostitutes, merchants and craftsmen, Yoffee depicts an evolutionary process centred on the concerns of everyday life. Drawing on evidence from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica, the author explores the variety of trajectories followed by ancient states, from birth to collapse, and explores the social processes that shape any account of the human past. This book offers a bold new interpretation of social evolutionary theory, and as such it is essential reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the emergence of complex society.
Download or read book The Anatomy of Myth written by Michael W. Herren and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Anatomy of Myth is a comprehensive study of the different methods of interpreting myths developed by the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, and eventually passed on to Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Bible. Greek thinkers only rarely saw "myth" as a category of thought in its own right. Most often they viewed myths as the creation of poets, or else as an ancient revelation that had been corrupted by them. In the first instance, critics attempted to find in the intention of the authors some deeper truth, whether physical or spiritual; in the second, they deemed it necessary to clear away poetic falsehoods in order to recapture an ancient revelation. Parallel to the philosophical critiques were the efforts of early historians to explain myths as exaggerated history; myths could be purified by logos (reason) and rendered believable. Practically all of these early methods could be lumped under the term "allegory"--to intend something different from what one expressed. Only occasionally did philosophers veer from a concern for the literal truth of myths but a few thinkers, while acknowledging myths as fictions, defended their value for the examples of good and bad human behavior they offered. These early efforts were invaluable for the development of critical thinking, enabling public criticism of even the most authoritative texts. The Church Fathers took the interpretative methods of their pagan contemporaries and applied them vigorously to their reading of the scriptures. Pagan Greek methods of myth interpretation passed into the Middle Ages and beyond, serving as a perennial defense against the damaging effects of scriptural literalism and fundamentalism.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean written by Peter Fibiger Bang and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean offers a comprehensive survey of ancient state formation in western Eurasia and North Africa. Eighteen experts introduce readers to a wide variety of systems spanning 4,000 years, from the earliest known states in world history to the Roman Empire and its immediate successors. They seek to understand the inner workings of these states by focusing on key issues: political and military power, the impact of ideologies, the rise and fall of individual polities, and the mechanisms of cooperation, coercion, and exploitation. This shared emphasis on critical institutions and dynamics invites comparative and cross-cultural perspectives. A detailed introductory review of contemporary approaches to the study of the state puts the rich historical case studies in context. Transcending conventional boundaries between ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history and between ancient and early medieval history, this volume will be of interest not only to historians but also anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, and political scientists. Its accessible style and up-to-date references will make it an invaluable resource for both students and scholars.
Download or read book The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations written by Norman Yoffee and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1991-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publikacja prac seminarium "School of American Research" które odbyło się w Santa Fe, 22-26 marca 1982 r.
Download or read book Myths and Realities of Caribbean History written by Basil A. Reid and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2009-04-12 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to debunk eleven popular and prevalent myths about Caribbean history. Using archaeological evidence, it corrects many previous misconceptions promulgated by history books and oral tradition as they specifically relate to the pre-Colonial and European-contact periods. It informs popular audiences, as well as scholars, about the current state of archaeological/historical research in the Caribbean Basin and asserts the value of that research in fostering a better understanding of the region’s past. Contrary to popular belief, the history of the Caribbean did not begin with the arrival of Europeans in 1492. It actually started 7,000 years ago with the infusion of Archaic groups from South America and the successive migrations of other peoples from Central America for about 2,000 years thereafter. In addition to discussing this rich cultural diversity of the Antillean past, Myths and Realities of Caribbean History debates the misuse of terms such as “Arawak” and “Ciboneys,” and the validity of Carib cannibalism allegations.
Download or read book Writing and the Ancient State written by Haicheng Wang and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing and the Ancient State explores the early development of writing and its relationship to the growth of political structures. The first part of the book focuses on the contribution of writing to the state's legitimating project. The second part deals with the state's use of writing in administration, analyzing both textual and archaeological evidence to reconstruct how the state used bookkeeping to allocate land, police its people, and extract taxes from them. The third part focuses on education, the state's system for replenishing its staff of scribe-officials. The first half of each part surveys evidence from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Maya lowlands, Central Mexico, and the Andes; against this background the second half examines the evidence from China. The chief aim of this book is to shed new light on early China (from the second millennium BC through the end of the Han period, ca. 220 AD) while bringing to bear the lens of cross-cultural analysis on each of the civilizations under discussion.
Download or read book Ancient States and Infrastructural Power written by Clifford Ando and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient States and Infrastructural Power examines how early states built their territorial, legal, and political powers before they had the capacity to enforce them. Contributors trace how state power first developed from the Andes to China, from Babylon to Rome.
Download or read book Genealogy and Identity written by Zoe A. Pappas and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-10 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a reprint of an academic treatise completed and copyrighted in 2008. Its objective was to illuminate unobserved connections between genealogical statements in the ancient Greek myths and the historical shift of political power westward from the Greek cities of coastal Asia Minor to the well-known metropoleis of mainland Greece. This shift characterized the centuries of transition between the myth-oriented literature of the Archaic Period and that of the ensuing Classical Period, associated especially with Athenian texts and the rise of the Classical Greek city-states.
Download or read book The Ancient Hawaiian State written by Robert J. Hommon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, this book redefines the study of primary states by arguing for the inclusion of Polynesia, which witnessed the development of primary states in both Hawaii and Tonga.
Download or read book The Development of Pre State Communities in the Ancient Near East written by Diane Bolger and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the dynamics of small-scale societies in the ancient Near East by examining the ways in which particular communities functioned and interacted and by moving beyond the broad neo-evolutionary models of social change which have characterised many earlier approaches. By focusing on issues of diversity, scale, and context, it considers the ways in which economy, crafts, technology, and ritual were organised; the roles played by mortuary practices and households in the structure and development of ancient societies; and the importance of agency, identity, ethnicity, gender, community and cultural interaction for the rise of socio-economic complexity. The contributors to this volume are well-known archaeologists in the field of Near Eastern studies; all are currently engaged in fieldwork or research in Cyprus, the Levant, or Turkey. The variety and depth of the research they present here reflect the richness of the archaeological record in the 'cradle of civilisation' and convey the vibrancy of current interpretive approaches within the field of Near Eastern prehistory today.
Download or read book Historical Geographies of Anarchism written by Federico Ferretti and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last few years, anarchism has been rediscovered as a transnational, cosmopolitan and multifaceted movement. Its traditions, often hastily dismissed, are increasingly revealing insights which inspire present-day scholarship in geography. This book provides a historical geography of anarchism, analysing the places and spatiality of historical anarchist movements, key thinkers, and the present scientific challenges of the geographical anarchist traditions. This volume offers rich and detailed insights into the lesser-known worlds of anarchist geographies with contributions from international leading experts. It also explores the historical geographies of anarchism by examining their expressions in a series of distinct geographical contexts and their development over time. Contributions examine the changes that the anarchist movement(s) sought to bring out in their space and time, and the way this spirit continues to animate the anarchist geographies of our own, perhaps often in unpredictable ways. There is also an examination of contemporary expressions of anarchist geographical thought in the fields of social movements, environmental struggles, post-statist geographies, indigenous thinking and situated cosmopolitanisms. This is valuable reading for students and researchers interested in historical geography, political geography, social movements and anarchism.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History written by Peter Clark and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008 for the first time the majority of the planet's inhabitants lived in cities and towns. Becoming globally urban has been one of mankind's greatest collective achievements over time, and raises many questions. How did global city systems evolve and interact in the past? How have historic urban patterns impacted on those of the contemporary world? And what were the key drivers in the roller-coaster of urban change over the millennia - market forces such as trade and industry, rulers and governments, competition and collaboration between cities, or the urban environment and demographic forces? This pioneering comparative work by leading scholars drawn from a range of disciplines offers the first detailed comparative study of urban development from ancient times to the present day. The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History explores not only the main trends in the growth of cities and towns across the world - in Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the Americas - and the different types of cities from great metropolitan centres to suburbs, colonial cities, and market towns, but also many of the essential themes in the making and remaking of the urban world: the role of power, economic development, migration, social inequality, environmental challenge and the urban response, religion and representation, cinema, and urban creativity. Split into three parts covering Ancient cities, the medieval and early-modern period, and the modern and contemporary era, it begins with an introduction by the editor identifying the importance and challenges of research on cities in world history, as well as the crucial outlines of urban development since the earliest cities in ancient Mesopotamia to the present.
Download or read book Myth written by G. S. Kirk and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1973-06-08 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, developed out of the 1969 Sather lectures at Berkeley, California, confronts a wide range of problems concerning the nature, meaning and functions of myths. Professor Kirk's aim is to introduce a degree of coherence and of critical awareness into a subject that arouses profound interest today, but which for too long has been the target of excessive theorizing and interdisciplinary confusion between anthropologists, sociologists, classicists, philosophers and psychologists. Professor Kirk begins by discussing the relation of myths to rituals and folktales, and the weakness of universalist theories of function. He then subjects Lévi-Strauss's structuralist theory to an extended exposition and criticism; he considers the character and meaning of ancient Near Eastern myths, their influence on Greece, and the special forms with rational modes of thought, and finally, he assesses the status of myths as expressions of the unconscious, as elements of dreams, universal symbols, as accidents along the way to some narrative objective. The result is a significant critical venture into the history and philosophy of thought, imagination, symbol and society.--From publisher description.
Download or read book The Ancient Egyptian State written by Robert J. Wenke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This survey traces the emergence of Egypt from a rural backwater into a great nation-state with a rich culture. Focusing on the period between 5000 and 2000 BC, the book traces the broad historical processes driving Egyptian civilisation and explores its most remarkable cultural phenomena.
Download or read book The Social History of Ancient Israel written by Rainer Kessler and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * An accessible social history of ancient Israel, designed for Old Testament courses * Includes a timeline and glossary of terms
Download or read book Urbanisation and State Formation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond written by Martin Sterry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 765 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking volume pushes back conventional dating of the earliest sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation in the Sahara.
Download or read book State Formations written by John L. Brooke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring a sweeping array of essays from scholars of state formation and development, this book presents an overview of approaches to studying the history of the state. Focusing on the question of state formation, this volume takes a particular look at the beginnings, structures, and constant reforming of state power. Not only do the contributors draw upon both modernist and postmodernist theoretical perspectives, they also address the topic from a global standpoint, examining states from all areas of the world. In their diverse and thorough exploration of state building, the authors cross the theoretical, geographic, and chronological boundaries that traditionally shape this field in order to rethink the customary macro and micro approaches to the study of state building and make the case for global histories of both pre-modern and modern state formations.
