A History of Private Life, Volume I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674399749 ISBN 13: 9780674399747

Publisher: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1992

Synopsis

First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slaves―from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces.

The emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs, the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the results of new research and the broad interpretations that only masters of the subject can provide.

About this title

About the Authors

Paul Veyne is Professor at the Collège de France.

Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.

Reviews

These volumes, edited by Philippe Aries and Georges Duby, are aimed at both the scholar and layperson who wonder how people lived and behaved from ancient times to the present: "their thoughts, their feelings, their bodies, their attitudes, their habits and habitations, their codes, their marks, and their signs." The focus is on western European life, primarily French.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674399749
• ISBN 13: 9780674399747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688
• Editor: Paul Veyne