Karl Marx observed that ‘just when people seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves... they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service’. While the Greek east under Roman rule was not revolutionary, perhaps, in the sense that Marx had in mind, it was engaged in creating something that had not previously existed, in part just through the millennia-long involvement with its own tradition, which was continually being remodelled and readapted. It was an age that was intensel...

A Short History of Greek Literature provides a concise yet comprehensive survey of Greek literature - from Christian authors - over twelve centuries, from Homer's epics to the rich range of authors surviving from the imperial period up to Justinian. The book is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the extraordinary creativity of the archaic and classical age, when the major literary genres - epic, lyric, tragedy, comedy, history, oratory and philosophy - were inv...

In Aristotle in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Aristotle's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Aristotle's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Aristotle within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Four Dissertations is a collection of four essays by the Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume, first published in 1757. The four essays are:The Natural History of Religion Of the Passions Of Tragedy Of the Standard of Taste Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A comprehensive view of the ancient Greek world, its history and its achievements. The legacy of the Hellenistic world is vast--it ranges from architecture to philosophy, literature, and the visual arts to military strategy and science. This authoritative study covers the period from the eighth century BC, which witnessed the emergence of the Greek city-states, to the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Greek monarchies some five centuries later. Chapters dealing ...

Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. THE CONSOLATION was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy. Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free w...

Philosophers certainly like to make life sound awfully complicated, whether they're wondering if a falling tree still makes a sound if there's nobody around to hear it (Berkeley) or declaring that everything in the universe is in a state of flux (Heraclitus). But is philosophy really so complicated? And is it really as irrelevant as it sometimes seems? I Think, Therefore I Am is the ideal way to take the fear out of philosophy. Written in an accessible and highly entertaining styl...

A concise narrative of Greek history and an analysis of the literature, art, and thought of the ancient Greeks.Tells the story of Greek civilization from the from the Minoan Period to the time of the Byzantine EmpireSurveys the remarkable culture and history the ancient GreeksExplores the ways in which Greek civilization has been continually reinvented from antiquity to the present dayUpdated edition includes additional illustrat...

This volume is designed to show the way to the beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial curiosity. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to the most recent efforts of the human mind. It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch-and what connected it with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all ...

The story of the Athenian Golden Age by one of the world's pre-eminent classical historians.The Golden Age of ancient Greek city-state civilization lasted from 490 to 336 BC, the period between the first wars against Persia and Carthage and the accession of Alexander the Great. Never has there been such a multiplication of talents and genius within so limited a period and Michael Grant captures this astonishing civilization at the height of its powers.

Sir Anthony Kenny continues his magisterial new history of Western philosophy with a fascinating guide through more than a millennium of thought from 400 AD onwards, charting the story of philosophy from the founders of Christian and Islamic thought through to the Renaissance.The middle ages saw a great flourishing of philosophy, and the intellectual endeavour of the era reaches its climax in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the systems of the great schoolmen such as Thomas Aq...

THE study of mediaeval philosophy has undergone considerable change in recent years, and the developments in this field of research have been important. On all sides the soil has been turned, and just as in archaeological excavation, as at Pompeii or at Timgad, here too discoveries unexpectedly rich are rewarding our search. For such men as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Abaelard, Hugo of St. Victor, John of Salisbury, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Thomas ...