Who knew the ancient Greeks had it all figured out three thousand years ago? In The Beginning of All Wisdom, author Steve Stavropoulos has sifted through nearly every recorded ancient Greek text for the very best sayings, proverbs, and maxims by ancient Greek philosophers, tragedians, scientists, politicians, generals, and poets, from Plato and Pericles to Socrates and Sophocles. Here is practical advice on everyday problems as well as answers to deep moral questions: Getting to know yourself is extremely difficult (Thales). Ignorance is a tough evil to conquer (Sophocles). We must take care o... View More...
In their introduction to this anthology, James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin remind us that no area of the past is dead if we are alive to it. The variety, the complexity, the sheer humanity of the middle ages live most meaningfully in their own authentic voices. The Portable Medieval Reader assembles an entire chorus of those voices--of kings, warriors, prelates, merchants, artisans, chroniclers, and scholars--that together convey a lively, intimate impression of a world that might otherwise seem immeasurably alien. All the aspects and strata of medieval society are represented here: ... View More...
The Romans conquered most of the known world and detailed their conquests in calm, unapologetic histories. They were a supremely urbane people who longed poetically for the farming life. Valuing toughness and practicality in all things, they turned the love poem into a cynical rebuke and wrote tragedies in which the unfathomable actions of gods gave way to the staggering cruelties of man. As the empire slid into decay, Tacitus pulled back the curtain on the perverse intrigues of the emperors, and a Roman-educated Christian named Augustine recounted his spiritual awakening in what may be the wo... View More...
A collection of extracts, poems, carols, songs and paintings that follow the seasons of the medieval year and the tasks and rituals traditionally associated with each season. The work describes many aspects of medieval life work and play, feasts and festivals, love, courtship and marriage. View More...
