Part of the emphasis seems to be on the beliefs of peoples of antiquity: what they perceived to be their own history and how it … The data used is current and findings from just the past few years are referenced to support various hypotheses. Still, these are appropriate endpoints. Price does a great job of digging into the cultural, political and philosophical richness of the time period, complete with illustrations and non verbose text that makes what could be a stuff topic seem accessible and engaging. 5.0 out of 5 stars The Birth of Classical Europe - Excellent! About The Birth of Classical Europe. The second half of Chapter 6, ‘The Later Huns and the Birth of Europe’, puts flesh on the bones of the key argument of the book by tracing the origins of European early med- ieval socio-political organisation and culture back to the steppes: absolute royal power, itinerant kingship, a ruling clan, divisions of territory among sons or relatives of the king, stratified ranking system for sub-kings, centralised feudalism, … Manythird-century Romans, locked in wars with Persia as interminable as America’sagainst “terror,” loudly said just that. This first book helps to give a good, however brief start to a history of Europe. There are thousands of books about the classical world so one might ask if we really need another. How do we know what we know about the Ancient World? According to Simon Price and Peter Thonemann's The Birth of Classical Europe, just … That is a lot of ground to cover in only four hundred pages, and The Birth of Classical Europe barely skims the centuries of history. In September 1997 Richard Dawkins allowed an Australian film crew into his Oxford home, only … Oneimagines the young man, otherwise schooled in engineering or poetry, readingEdward Gibbon before embarking on a career in colonial administration—or WillDurant before joining the State Department. This iscertainly no replacement for actual scholarship—actual archaeology and philologyand dendrology—but it also represents more than a difference in scale, alongsome trajectory a real classicist might say started with the Library ofAlexandria. This is the richest irony; as Price and Thonemann recountelsewhere, Alexander’s sixth-century forbearer needed a legal dispensation tocompete in the Pan-Hellenic Olympics since no one was convinced the tribal andking-ruled Macedonians were Greek, atleast in the way of the city-states. The Birth of Classical Europe A History From Troy to Augustine (Book) : Price, S. R. F. : Presents revisionist insights into the influences of classical cultures, revealing the lesser-known roles played by ancient civilizations on shaping the modern West, in an account that also cites the contributions of Greek and Roman figures. This first book covers the beginnings of Western Civilization from the Trojan War to the time of Augustine of Hippo. Archeological evidence is interpreted and at times reinterpreted to explain what we think we know about what happened between two and four thousand years ago in Europe. The authors focus on Greek history and then move on to Rome. See all details for The Birth of Classical Europe: A History from Troy to Augustine (The... © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Top subscription boxes – right to your door. A landmark achievement, "The Birth of Classical Europe"provides insight into an epoch that is both incredibly foreign and surprisingly familiar. From calendars to democracy to the very languages we speak, Western civilization owes a debt to these classical societies. After William ChesterJordan’s Europe in the High Middle Ages (2004), Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome:Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400­–1000 (2007),and Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory: Europe1648­–1815­ (2009)—Penguin’schronology is as confoundingly ad hoc as a Hulkor Superman film franchise—theseries now alights on the origin story, or “A History from Troy to Augustine.”Series editor David Cannadine is a scholar of the British Empire by trade (hewrote 2001’s clever and influential Ornamentalism), but his instincts as historiographical castingdirector appear as well acquitted to the haze of Pax Romana and its B.C.antecedents as they were to the more recent Peaces, of Westphalia and Vienna,which bookended Blanning’s well-received entry. At thedawn of the present century, writers, publishers, and readers of the genre musthave counted not merely on its survival, but revival. An authoritative history covering two millennia of human experience, The Birth of Classical Europe presents provocative new perspectives on the world in whose shadow we continue to live. While I appreciate a lively and /or compelling narrative I also enjoy crisp and concise neutrality, Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2017. Throughout the chapter, the authors compare the … But the basic question with which this book is concerned is whether we can meaningfully describe this period as the 'birth' of Europe. From calendars to democracy to the very languages we speak, Western civilization owes a debt to these classical societies. Today, via hyperlink and ubiquitous bandwidth, he could spend as manyhours as his determination or day-job allows reviewing hyper-detailedblueprints of every Minoan palace, considering the purported matriarchal oreven proto-feminist subtext of Minoan bull-jumping, “reading” everyextant inscription of Linear A, the undeciphered Minoan script. This is the first in Penguin’s new series of European history and inexcusably they’re overwrought narrative failures. Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2015. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Review these European time periods: Classical: from ancient Greece and Rome Medieval: from the Middle Ages Renaissance: the Re-birth of classical culture in Europe after the EMBED. The Birth of Classical Europe is a wonderful introduction to the ancient world. Buy a cheap copy of The Birth of Classical Europe: A History... book by Peter Thonemann. The Birth of Classical Europe: A History from Troy to Augustine by Simon Price and Peter Thonemann (Viking) An innovative and intriguing look at the foundations of Western civilization from two leading historians. The Birth of Classical Europe, by Simon Price and Peter Thronemann is the first book in a series, The Penguin History of Europe. But The Birth of Classical Europe isn’t aformless cloud of facts and dates, without narrative or argument. The Birth of Classical Europe: A History from Troy to Augustine (The Penguin History of Europe). The authors of this terrific history are willing to reveal the translation process from findings to speculations. Launched in January 2001, Wikipediafinally emblematizes nothing less than a revolution for the armchair historian,the cultural dilettante (or polymath) of all kinds. Most of all as the world we live in changes we need new books to help us connect with a past that is constantly moving. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. An innovative and intriguing look at the foundations of Western civilization from two leading historians; the first volume in the Penguin History of Europe. Thereason Price and Thonemann aren’t saved by appeals to proportion or curationis, ironically but unsurprisingly, the same thing that makes their take on anold form so laudably modern: they’re too sophisticated—or too respectful oftheir audience’s sophistication—to attempt the feel-good sophistry longsynonymous with “popular.”. Learn more. The western world has long been fascinated by classical Greek and Roman... Free shipping over $10. 1) The Birth of Classical Europe: A History from Troy to Augustine – Simon Price, Peter Thonemann Penguin Books | 2011 | MOBI. They gave me riveting accounts of Athens’ rise to as a cultural and maritime power and its reverberations in the Persian and Peloponnesian w I’ve got mixed feelings about this book. But they’d have quickly runup against the complications of history as argument—Rome’s millennium-oldfounding myth had the city settled by the Trojan,not the Achaean (Greek), survivors of the war. Chapter 5, 'The "fine" Europe of towns and universities (thirteenth century)', revisits some of the areas most central to Le Goff's life work. The authors sometimes have a clear focus on what they want to tell. Consider, for instance, modern Greece’s decade-longgeo-linguistic campaign against international recognition of the Republic ofMacedonia, because the Macedon of Alexander the Great was Hellene while today’simposters are Slavs. Great book and a fast and easy transaction. The structure and writing is concise. to A.D. 475,give or take—than its three much longer predecessors combined. Such an impulse far precedes the Internet. The Mahamuni temple in Mandalay, built by the Burmese king Bodawpaya in 1784. Similarly, the ratherabsurdist hangover of classical prestige that’s plagued Europe since thenineteenth century is evoked through episodes perfectly pitched betweenfarcical and tragic. Have read others in the series and they all have been a good investment of time. Good survey history of a busy timeframe. Despite the immense ground covered, there is no impression of the breathlessness and superficiality which one might have thought unavoidable. Though the derivative high literature is properly (andsuccinctly) surveyed, the outsize affective role of Troy—a war, after all,which no serious archaeologist will quite exactlyconfirm took place—is most neatly demonstrated by a bit of Banksy­-cleverfound art: already in 730 B.C., far afield in the Bay of Naples, atwelve-year-old boy is buried with a wine cup inscribed, in Euboean, with ajoke obliquely referencing Nestor, mythic king of Pylos. Indeed, the library model—the encyclopedia model—has, almostimperceptibly, inverted itself even as we continue using its metaphors: for thefirst time in the popular dispersal of knowledge, it is easier for the casualexplorer to reach the raw details, the material evidence, the internecinetheoretical squabbles and, yes, even the elaborately manicured fabrications,than any finite, authorized, and authoritative account. Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2012. The Birth of Classical Europe can look deep into the logistics of a war or a development in classical history. From calendars to democracy to the very languages we speak, Western civilization owes a debt to these … Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Jonathan Liu is a reviewer and journalist who has written for The New York Observer, Gawker.com, and The Harvard Book Review. There's a problem loading this menu right now. RRP $46.99 Learn more Available on orders $80 to $2,000. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. These books are good for beyond the beginner, and someone with a little more knowledge and understanding. Infact, it may be in the focus on the vagaries and self-flatteries of identitythat The Birth of Classical Europecomes closest to the tone and texture of old-school popular history. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis Perhaps the greatest tribute one can give Oxford classicists Simon Price and Peter Thonemann is that "The Birth of Classical Europe" reads nothing at all … This series so far has been very good, would recommend anyone interested in these topics to read them. seven centuries, geographically focusing on the Aegean region: Crete and parts of mainland Greece, the birthplaces of the Minoan and the Mycenaean palatial civilizations. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 cover the next great migrations—the Viking Diaspora and the movement of slavs and magyars into the areas once dominated by Germanic speakers and beyond to form the essential demography of Europe by about 1000 CE. The 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth finds an agreeable tribute in the German television film “Louis van Beethoven,” available now on VOD. I really like this series of history books from Penguin. Use the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. In The Birth of Classical Europe, the latest entry in the much-acclaimed Penguin History of Europe, historians Simon Price and Peter Thonemann present a fresh perspective on classical culture in a book full of revelations about civilizations we thought we knew. Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2013. 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