Ancient History: Evidence and Models - Softcover

Finley, M. I.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140552294 ISBN 13: 9780140552294

Publisher: Puffin, 1987

Synopsis

In this study of Greek and Roman history, the author addresses the limitations imposed by the available evidence, stressing the fact that there is much that the modern scholar cannot learn by consulting the ancient sources. With emphasis on the fundamental importance of asking the right questions, he challenges the special status accorded to classical texts and exposes the flaws in the traditional approach to ancient history. He even goes on to suggest alternative methods for re-constructing history.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In ancient times war was universally held to be a natural condition, so Rome's claim to fight only just wars, hypocritical though it may have been, reflected a genuine conflict of values. University of Cambridge historian Finley brings to these reflections on ancient history an insistence that we avoid imposing our own preconceptions on the way things actually were. His short polemic reminds us that primary sources are inexact, archeological evidence is scanty, statistics are suspect, and that the ancients liked to invent; Thucydides' chronicles notwithstanding, we will never be certain what Pericles told the Athenian assembly in 430 b.c. Finley knocks sociologist Max Weber for putting too much emphasis on Greek demagogues' charisma; rabble-rousers' platforms and promises are what swayed the masses, he maintains. He asserts that it is up to each historian to ask the right questions and supply a meaningful conceptual framework, and this underlying credo gives these scholarly essays point and pith. February
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

'The most influential ancient historian of our time Indisputably the most valuable writing on ancient history since 1945.', New York Review of Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0140552294
• ISBN 13: 9780140552294
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 144