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English Language Edition Of The Lectures On Greek And Roman History, Eight Volumes, By Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776 ?1831). Beautifully Bound In Full Tan Calf, Five Bands, Red Morocco Title Label, Green Morocco Author/Volume Label, Elaborate Gilt Tooling, Gilt Ruled Borders And Devices On Covers, Brightly Marbled Endpapers, And Matching Marbled Page Edges, All Very Well Preserved With Just Slight Rubbing. Niebuhr, A Danish-German Statesman And Historian, Became Germany's Leading Historian Of Ancient Rome And A Founding Father Of Modern Scholarly Historiography. Classical Rome (Rather Than Greece) Caught The Admiration Of German Thinkers. By 1810 Niebuhr Was Inspiring German Patriotism In Students At The University Of Berlin By His Analysis Of Roman Economics And Government. Historians Generally View Niebuhr As A Leader Of The Romantic Era And Symbol Of German National Spirit That Emerged After The Defeat At Jena. But He Was Also Deeply Rooted In The Classical Spirit Of The Age Of Enlightenment In His Intellectual Presuppositions, His Use Of Philologic Analysis, And His Emphasis On Both General And Particular Phenomena In History. He Was Born In Copenhagen, The Son Of Carsten Niebuhr, A Prominent German Geographer Resident In The City. His Father Provided His Early Education.The Precocious Young Niebuhr By 1794 Was Already An Accomplished Classical Scholar And Who Read Several Languages. That Year He Entered The University Of Kiel, Where He Studied Law And Philosophy. In 1796, He Left Kiel To Become Private Secretary To The Danish Finance Minister, Count Schimmelmann. But In 1798 He Gave Up This Appointment And Traveled In Great Britain, Spending A Year At Edinburgh Studying Agriculture And Physics. Of His Stay In Great Britain, He Said ?My Early Residence In England Gave Me One Important Key To Roman History. It Is Necessary To Know Civil Life By Personal Observation In Order To Understand Such States As Those Of Antiquity. I Never Could Have Understood A Number Of Things In The History Of Rome Without Having Observed England.?Niebuhr's Roman History Counts Among Epoch-Making Histories Both As Marking An Era In The Study Of Its Special Subject And For Its Momentous Influence On The General Conception Of History. Leonhard Schmitz Said: "The Main Results Arrived At By The Inquiries Of Niebuhr, Such As His Views Of The Ancient Population Of Rome, The Origin Of The Plebs, The Relation Between The Patricians And Plebeians, The Real Nature Of The Ager Publicus, And Many Other Points Of Interest, Have Been Acknowledged By All His Successors." Other Alleged Discoveries, Such As The Construction Of Early Roman History Out Of Still Earlier Ballads, Have Not Been Equally Fortunate; But If Every Positive Conclusion Of Niebuhr's Had Been Refuted, His Claim To Be Considered The First Who Dealt With The Ancient History Of Rome In A Scientific Spirit Would Remain Unimpaired, And The New Principles Introduced By Him Into Historical Research Would Lose Nothing Of Their Importance. He Suggested, Though He Did Not Elaborate, The Theory Of The Myth, So Potent An Instrument For Good And Ill In Modern Historical Criticism. He Brought In Inference To Supply The Place Of Discredited Tradition, And Showed The Possibility Of Writing History In The Absence Of Original Records. By His Theory Of The Disputes Between The Patricians And Plebeians Arising From Original Differences Of Race He Drew Attention To The Immense Importance Of Ethnological Distinctions, And Contributed To The Revival Of These Divergences As Factors In Modern History. More Than All, Perhaps, Since His Conception Of Ancient Roman Story Made Laws And Manners Of More Account Than Shadowy Lawgivers, He Undesignedly Influenced History By Further Popularizing That Conception Of It Which Lays Stress On Institutions, Tendencies And Social Traits.
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