Konrad H. Kinzl – A Companion To The Classical Greek World

Автор: Konrad H. Kinzl
Название книги: A Companion To The Classical Greek World
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Древний мир и Античность
Страницы: 633
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This Companion provides scholarly yet accessible new interpretations of Greek history of the Classical period, from the aftermath of the Persian Wars in 478 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.
Topics covered range from the political and institutional structures of Greek society, to literature, art, economics, society, warfare, geography and the environment
Discusses the problems of interpreting the various sources for the period
Guides the reader towards a broadly-based understanding of the history of the Classical Age

It is the editor’s hope that this volume will offer, by its structure, organization and
concept, an inspiring perspective, and will serve that audience well which Blackwell
had in mind when they embarked on this enterprise: as ‘a personal reference source
for specialist historians, particularly those operating in adjacent fields of history, and
as a ‘‘vade mecum’’ for undergraduate and graduate students’.
It is hoped that readers will in particular find much assembled here between the
covers of one volume which they could otherwise locate only in a widely scattered
variety of scholarly publications; and which they will not find in other volumes on this
difficult period of ancient Greek History: chapters on government, the environment,
art, philosophy, rhetoric, religion, society; on far distant regions to which ancient
Greek civilization had spread or by which it was influenced, from the ‘Pillars of
Hercules’ to Persia and India, and from the Crimea to North Africa. The historical
narrative, while in many ways the backbone of any historical investigation, has been
placed at the end of the volume in order to allow attention to be drawn to the many
other aspects – not to negate its essential function.
As for maps, attention must be drawn first and foremost to R. J. A. Talbert (2000)
(ed.) Barrington Atlas of the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Excellent maps are available on the Internet from the related resource Ancient World
Mapping Center (Access: http://www.unc.edu/awmc/). With the exception on one
map on page xix, Blackwell Publishing therefore decided not to include additional
maps in this edition.
The history of this volume, like that of many a book, is a somewhat complex and
varied one. My own original plan for this volume constitutes the conceptual backbone.
For a period, at my request and until he was compelled, for personal reasons, to
withdraw from the project, Professor Lawrence A. Tritle of Loyola Marymount
University, Los Angeles, served as co-editor, especially by recruiting a number of
important contributors whilst I was on a year of sabbatical leave in Athens during
2001–2.
A special and personal debt of gratitude is owed by me to Al Bertrand, without
whose untiring support I would not have been able to rescue and complete the
volume; to Angela Cohen for her most effective work; to all others who worked at
or for Blackwell Publishing on this volume; and last but not least to Dr Thomas
Elliott for generously creating the original blank map for use in this book. The most
deeply felt expression of gratitude, however, must go to the contributors of the
chapters, who collectively are the authors of this book.
Konrad H. Kinzl