Ancient History: Evidence and Models (Acls History E-book Project Reprint Series) - Softcover

Finley, Professor M I

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597405345 ISBN 13: 9781597405348

Publisher: ACLS History E-Book Project, 2008

Synopsis

In this study, the author challenges the prevailing traditions of researching and writing about ancient civilizations. He questions, for example, the special status accorded to classic texts, exposes the false assumptions historians have made, based on limited information, and presents the flaws inherent in conventional explanations of the Greek city-state. Emphasizing the need to ask the right questions in order to expand our understanding of life in the ancient world, this work shows how historians might better deal with the evidence that is available and offers alternative methods that can be used to reconstruct 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
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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: ACLS History E-Book Project
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1597405345
• ISBN 13: 9781597405348
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 148