Marrying life-writing with classical reception, this book examines ancient biography and its impact on subsequent ages. Close readings of ancient texts are framed by an assessment of their influence on the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and on the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, of responses to ancient biography of modern critics, and of its visible legacy in art and film. Crucially it asks what modern biographers can learn from their ancient predecessors. Ar...

This book focuses on the twin arts of literature and music, supporting the notion that cosmopolitanism is the natural condition of all the arts, and that all culture - without exception - is migrant culture. It draws on examples ranging from the first to the twenty-first centuries AD, on locations as remote as Alexandria and Australia, on writers as different as Virgil and V.S.Naipaul, Arnold and Achebe, and on musicians as diverse as Bach and Bartok, Purcell and Steve Reich. Across thirte...

This second edition of Ian Gordon's A Preface to Pope places the poet within the social, cultural and intellectual context of his time. It throws new light on the theoretical and imaginative structures of Pope's poetry focusing on the linguistic complexity at its centre. It offers a critical survey of his work and also contains introductory essays. The book concludes with a reference section which includes indispensible information on places and people in Pope's poetry, together w...

In recent years, Europe has had to constantly rethink and redefine its attitude toward new flows of immigrations. Issues of boundaries and identity have been integral to this reflection. Through a magnificent collection of essays, Migrant Cartographies examines both sites and conflicts and the way in which forms of belonging and identity have been reinvented. With careful analysis and exceptional insight, this volume explores the most recent literature on migration as seen from di...

A classic study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind, and the progress through magic and religion to scientific thought, The Golden Bough has a unique status in modern anthropology and literature. First published in 1890, The Golden Bough was eventually issued in a twelve-volume edition (1906-15) which was abridged in 1922 by the author and his wife. That abridgement has never been reconsidered for a modern audience. In it some of the more controversial passages wer...

The poet George Barker was convinced that his biography could never be written. 'I've stirred the facts around too much,' he told Robert Fraser. 'It simply can't be done.' Eliot wrote of his 'genius'. Yeats thought him the most interesting poet of his generation. Dylan Thomas envied his power over women. War trapped him in Japan. In America he conducted one of the most celebrated love affairs of the century. He fathered fifteen children in several countries, three during one battle-torn su...

This surprising study draws together the disparate fields of postcolonial theory and book history in a challenging and illuminating way.Robert Fraser proposes that we now look beyond the traditional methods of the Anglo-European bibliographic paradigm, and learn to appreciate instead the diversity of shapes that verbal expression has assumed across different societies. This change of attitude will encourage students and researchers to question developmentally conceived models of co...

Includes an AUDIOBOOK SUPPLEMENT with all the charts in the print book!The greatest days of planet earth are on the horizon. Contrary to popular belief, we actually have a bright future on planet earth. Yes, there are plenty of challenges to tackle, no question. But history and the Bible tell a very different story You may be surprised to learn how much the earth has changes in the 2000 years since Jesus' birth -- for the better!Discover some eye-popping charts and facts on...

In this new translation the brilliant and impassioned descriptions of Augustine's colourful early life are conveyed to the English reader with accuracy and art. Augustine tells of his wrestlings to master his sexual drive, his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of high power at the imperial court of Milan, and his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage as he recovered the faith that his mother had taught him. It was in a Milan garden that Augustine ...

For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my attention was the hitherto unexplained rule of the Arician priesthood; and last spring it happened that in the course of my reading I came across some facts which, combined with others I had noted before, suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of primitive religion, I ...

One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on religion, ethics, politics, women, suicide, books and many other themes is taken from Schopenhauer's last work, Parerga and Paralipomena, which he published in 1851. These pieces depict humanity as locked in a struggle beyond good and evil, and eac...

The New York Times –bestselling author and social philosopher explores the function of ethics and morality in the human psyche: "A fascinating volume . . . magnificent in its implications" ( Saturday Review ).Are we primarily determined by nature or nurture? What are the best ways that people can live productively? In Man for Himself, renowned social philosopher Erich Fr...