Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction

Paperback

Roberts, Jennifer T 저자(글)

Oxford University Press · 2011년 07월 14일

책 소개

Jennifer Roberts introduces the background and writing of the 5th-century Greek thinker and researcher, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who invented the genre of historical investigation. Herodotus is shown to be a reporter, a tourist and a historian.
Jennifer Roberts was educated at Yale and has taught since 1992 at the City University of New York, where she directs the doctoral program in Ancient History at the Graduate Center. She has published widely in the field of Greek history and historiography and has particular interests in ancient and modern democracy, Herodotus, Thucydides, and ancient warfare. She is particularly concerned with the history of attitudes towards social justice and its manifestations in government and law.
Jennifer T. Robertsis Professor of Classics and History, City College of New York.
Herodotus has come to be respected by most scholars as a responsible and important historian. Herodotus was both a critical thinker and a lively storyteller, a traveller who was both tourist and anthropologist. Like Homer, he set out to memorialize great deeds in words; more narrowly, he determined to discover the causes of the wars between Greece and Persia and to explain them to his fellow Greeks. In his hands, the Greeks' unforeseeable defeat of the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes, with their vast hosts, made for fascinating storytelling. Influenced by the work of the natural scientists and philosophers of his own and earlier eras, Herodotus also brought his literary talents to bear on a vast, unruly mass of information gathered from many interviews throughout his travels and left behind him the longest work that had ever been written in Greek - the first work of history, and one whichcontinues to be read with enjoyment today. Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction introduces readers to what little is known of Herodotus's life and goes on to discuss all aspects of his work, including his fascination with his origins; his travels; his view of the world in relation to boundaries and their transgressions; and his interest in seeing the world and learning about non-Greek civilizations. We also explore the recurring themes of his work, his beliefs in dreams, oracles, and omens, the prominence of women in his work,and his account of the battles of the Persian Wars.
Hailed by Cicero as "the father of history," Herodotus was both a critical thinker and a lively storyteller, a traveler who was both tourist and anthropologist. Like Homer, he set out to memorialize great deeds in words, in particular, the wars between Greece and Persia. In his hands, the Greeks' unforeseeable defeat of the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes with their vast hosts made for fascinating storytelling. Influenced by the work of the natural scientists and philosophers of his own and earlier eras, Herodotus also brought his literary talents to bear on a vast, unruly mass of historical information, leaving behind him the longest work that had ever been written in Greek. This Very Short Introduction introduces readers to what little is known of Herodotus's life and discusses all aspects of his work, including his travels; his interest in seeing the world and learning about non-Greek civilizations; the recurring themes of his work; his beliefs in dreams, oracles, and omens; the prominence of women in his work; and his account of the battles of the Persian Wars.
"Built on a vast but unobtrusive bedrock of fine scholarship, its research up-to-date, its judgments and interpretations well-balanced, its obvious affection for its subject never getting in the way of a necessary correction, its tone as amused, ironic, and humane as Herodotus's own, this little volume is as near-perfect an introduction to the Father of History as one could hope for: the general readers for whom it is intended can count themselves lucky, and -- experto credite -- scholars may learn a thing or two from it as well. -- Peter Green,The New Republic
Jennifer Roberts introduces the background and writing of the 5th century Greek thinker and researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who invented the genre of historical investigation. She discusses all aspects of his work, including his fascination with his origins; his travels; his interest in seeing the world; and the recurring themes of his work.

작가정보

저자(글) Roberts, Jennifer T

목차

• List of illustrations	p. xiii
  Map	p. xv
  Introduction	p. 1
  The world of Herodotus	p. 6
  Origins and the historian	p. 20
  Greeks and Persians at war	p. 29
  Herodotus as ethnographer	p. 49
  Women in history, women in The Histories	p. 65
  Herodotus and the divine	p. 76
  Herodotus as storyteller	p. 89
  Herodotus as historian	p. 99
  Further reading	p. 113
  Chronology	p. 117
  Index	p. 119
  Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

기본정보

ISBN	9780199575992 ( 0199575991 )
발행(출시)일자	2011년 07월 14일
쪽수	123쪽
크기	114 * 178 * 6 mm / 118 g
총권수	1권
언어	영어