Author: Yun Lee Too File Type: pdf The rhetoric of identity in Isocrates offers a sustained interpretation of the Isocratean corpus, showing that rhetoric is a language which the author uses to create a political identity for himself in fourth-century Athens. Dr Too examines how Isocrates discourse addresses anxieties surrounding the written word in a democratic culture which values the spoken word as the privileged means of political expression. Isocrates makes written culture the basis for a revisionary Athenian politics and of a rhetoric of Athenian hegemony. In addition, Isocrates takes issue with the popular image of the professional teacher in the age of the sophist, combating the negative stereotype of the greedy sophist who corrupts the citys youth in his portrait of himself as a teacher of rhetoric. He daringly reinterprets the pedagogue as a figure who produces a discourse which articulates political authority. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to ancient rhetoric and should appeal to people with interests in the fields of classics, history, the history of political thought, literature, literary theory, philosophy and education. All passages in Greek and Latin have been translated to ensure accessibility to non-classicists.

Author: Charles W. J. Withers File Type: pdf Charles Withers explains how the choice of Greenwich to mark 0 longitude solved problems of global measurement that had engaged geographers, astronomers, and mariners since ancient times. This history is a testament to the power of maps, the challenges of global measurement, and the role of scientific authority in creating the modern world. **Review [A] wonderful new book on the long and uneven history of the Prime MeridianThe book is deeply and impeccably researched, and immensely detailed, but it is always a fascinating and compelling readIt is hard to imagine a better, fuller or more coherent account of how modern time came to be.Penny Fielding*, Journal of British Studies*** [A] compelling bookWithers manages to turn what might have been an obscure, rather technical topic into a fascinating account of international rivalry and a meditation on what the whole business of measuring the world around us can reveal about broader cultural patterns. Jon Wright*, Geographical*** An extremely well researched book that ties together various disciplines and fills in details absent from previous single works on the subject[Zero Degrees] will serve libraries, scholars, and researchers well for a longtime to come.Ian Fowler*, Journal of Historical Geography*** Charles Withers raises fundamental questions about themes of great contemporary relevance the ways in which competing local and national interests can ever be reconciled around themes of urgent technological and political concern, and the very question of what counts as global action and globalised authority. Not at all a simple tale of rational planning and of reasoned debate, the stories told here emerge in startling detail as more complex, more fascinating and more consequential than has ever previously been recognised. This is a story of compromise and cunning, of improvisation and partisanship, bringing the highest standards of geographical and historical scholarship to bear on the fundamental problem of the meridian.Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge This is a rich and valuable book about an important narrative in the history of science and geography, one that presents a longer and deeper historical context for the choice of Greenwich than any other accounts.Richard Dunn, Senior Curator and Head of Science and Technology, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich About the Author Charles W. J. Withers is Ogilvie Chair of Geography, University of Edinburgh, and Geographer Royal for Scotland.

Author: Leo Mates File Type: pdf Language NotesText English, Serbo-Croation (translation)

Author: Frances Gies File Type: pdf Amazon.com ReviewHistorians, write Frances and Joseph Gies, have long tended to view the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual and scientific stagnation, a long era of backwardness, ignorance, and inertia. Many scholars of the Renaissance era, however, thought otherwise the mathematician Jerome Cardan, for one, held that three medieval inventions--the magnetic compass, the printing press, and gunpowder--were of such significance that the whole of antiquity has nothing equal to show.In their lively history of medieval technology, the Gies team writes of such advances as the heavy plow, the Gothic flying buttress, linen undergarments, water pumps, and the lateen sail. During the medieval millennium, they suggest, a great technological and social revolution occurred with the disappearance of mass slavery, the shift to water- and wind-power, the introduction of the open-field system of agriculture, and the importation, adaptation, or invention of an array of devices, from the wheelbarrow to double-entry bookkeeping. Many of those inventions or adaptations, brought into Europe from China and the Middle East, have scarcely been improved on today.The medieval technological revolution, the authors conclude, came at a cost much of Europe was deforested to make room for cropland and to fire kilns and furnaces, and mechanization made obsolete many handicraft skills. Yet, they add, the workers and inventors of the Middle Ages all transformed the world, on balance very much to the worlds advantage. --Gregory McNameeFrom Library JournalMoving chronologically through a millennium (500-1500 A.D.), the authors (who have written numerous books on medieval life, including Life in a Medieval City , LJ 2170) show that the term Dark Ages is a misnomer by deftly tracing the periods main technological elements, . . . their known or probable sources, and their principal impacts. In addition to the technological developments highlighted in the books title, the authors cover such topics as the textile industry and shipbuildingrigging, plus obligatory topics like printing, engineering, and gunpowder. Throughout, they nimbly weave medieval cultural history into the discussion. Informative, readable, enjoyable, and well written, this work is directed to general readers. Highly recommended for all collections.- Michael D. Cramer, Virginia Polytechnic & State Univ. Libs . , Blacksburg 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. An illuminating look at the monumental inventions of the Middle Ages, by the authors of Life in a Medieval Castle.Amazon.com ReviewHistorians, write Frances and Joseph Gies, have long tended to view the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual and scientific stagnation, a long era of backwardness, ignorance, and inertia. Many scholars of the Renaissance era, however, thought otherwise the mathematician Jerome Cardan, for one, held that three medieval inventions--the magnetic compass, the printing press, and gunpowder--were of such significance that the whole of antiquity has nothing equal to show.In their lively history of medieval technology, the Gies team writes of such advances as the heavy plow, the Gothic flying buttress, linen undergarments, water pumps, and the lateen sail. During the medieval millennium, they suggest, a great technological and social revolution occurred with the disappearance of mass slavery, the shift to water- and wind-power, the introduction of the open-field system of agriculture, and the importation, adaptation, or invention of an array of devices, from the wheelbarrow to double-entry bookkeeping. Many of those inventions or adaptations, brought into Europe from China and the Middle East, have scarcely been improved on today.The medieval technological revolution, the authors conclude, came at a cost much of Europe was deforested to make room for cropland and to fire kilns and furnaces, and mechanization made obsolete many handicraft skills. Yet, they add, the workers and inventors of the Middle Ages all transformed the world, on balance very much to the worlds advantage. --Gregory McNameeFrom Library JournalMoving chronologically through a millennium (500-1500 A.D.), the authors (who have written numerous books on medieval life, including Life in a Medieval City , LJ 2170) show that the term Dark Ages is a misnomer by deftly tracing the periods main technological elements, . . . their known or probable sources, and their principal impacts. In addition to the technological developments highlighted in the books title, the authors cover such topics as the textile industry and shipbuildingrigging, plus obligatory topics like printing, engineering, and gunpowder. Throughout, they nimbly weave medieval cultural history into the discussion. Informative, readable, enjoyable, and well written, this work is directed to general readers. Highly recommended for all collections.- Michael D. Cramer, Virginia Polytechnic & State Univ. Libs . , Blacksburg 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.