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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010281213 | G71.5 G46 2010 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of Discovery Provides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient India Explores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials
Author Notes
Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History, at Brown University. His numerous publications include The Discovery of Freedom (2004) and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (2007, co-authored with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace). He is also the editor of Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (Blackwell, 2005), and War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of A Companion to Archaic Greece (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
Richard J. A. Talbert is William Rand Kenan, Jr, Professor of History and Classics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000), and co-editor of Space in the Roman World: Its Perception and Presentation (2004), as well as of Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (2008). His major study Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered will appear in 2010.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
As the subtitle of this addition to the "Ancient World: Comparative Histories" series indicates, the series is not limited to the familiar societies of antiquity but includes societies that are structurally "ancient," such as the Aztecs. The 20 papers originated in a workshop held at Brown University in March 2006 and fully reflect the series' world focus and broad definition of ancient societies. Two papers treat Indian views of the world; three, Chinese; three, pre-Columbian American; three, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Jewish; four, Greco-Roman; three, medieval European and Islamic; and one, early modern European. The papers are authoritative surveys of their subjects, but the book's title is somewhat misleading. Only one paper, Michael Loewe's "Knowledge of Other Cultures in China's Early Empires," with its illuminating discussion of the relationship of the Chinese state and descriptions of the "other," primarily concerns ethnography. The focus of the other 19 papers is geography, with the treatment of ethnography limited to examining how various cultures integrated foreign peoples into their worldviews. Summing Up: Highly recommended. University libraries, upper-division undergraduates, and above. S. M. Burstein emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles
Table of Contents
| List of Figures | p. vii |
| Notes on Contributors | p. xi |
| Series Editor's Preface | p. xvii |
| 1 Introduction | p. 1 |
| 2 Where the Black Antelope Roam: Dharma and Human Geography in India | p. 9 |
| 3 Humans, Demons, Gods and Their Worlds: The Sacred and Scientific Cosmologies of India | p. 32 |
| 4 Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China | p. 43 |
| 5 Nonary Cosmography in Ancient China | p. 64 |
| 6 Knowledge of Other Cultures in China's Early Empires | p. 74 |
| 7 The Mississippian Peoples' Worldview | p. 89 |
| 8 Aztec Geography and Spatial Imagination | p. 108 |
| 9 Inca Worldview | p. 128 |
| 10 Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens: Views of the Universe in Early Mesopotamian Writings | p. 147 |
| 11 The World and the Geography of Otherness in Pharaonic Egypt | p. 169 |
| 12 On Earth as in Heaven: The Apocalyptic Vision of World Geography from Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees | p. 182 |
| 13 'I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea': Geography and Difference in the Early Greek World | p. 197 |
| 14 Continents, Climates, and Cultures: Greek Theories of Global Structure | p. 215 |
| 15 The Geographical Narrative of Strabo of Amasia | p. 236 |
| 16 The Roman Worldview: Beyond Recovery? | p. 252 |
| 17 The Medieval Islamic Worldview: Arabic Geography in Its Historical Context | p. 273 |
| 18 The Book of Curiosities: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian View of the Lands of the Infidels | p. 291 |
| 19 Geography and Ethnography in Medieval Europe: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Concerns | p. 311 |
| 20 Europeans Plot the Wider World, 1500-1750 | p. 330 |
| Index | p. 344 |
