Author: W. V. Harris File Type: pdf Moses Finley (1912-1986) was one of the most widely read scholarly historians and journalists of his age, having grown famous with The World of Odysseus and he exercised a transformative influence on the study of the history of Greek and Roman antiquity. In this centenary volume distinguished ancient historians and Americanists analyse Finleys political and intellectual evolution, and attempt to understand the paradoxes of the young leftist and victim of McCarthyism whose work owes more to Weber than to Marx and of the young Jewish scholar (Moses Finkelstein) who distanced himself from Jewishness. **

Author: Thomas F. Gieryn File Type: pdf We may not realize it, but truth and place are inextricably linked. For ancient Greeks, temples and statues clustered on the side of Mount Parnassus affirmed their belief that predictions from the oracle at Delphi were accurate. The trust we have in Thoreaus wisdom depends in part on how skillfully he made Walden Pond into a perfect place for discerning timeless truths about the universe. Courthouses and laboratories are designed and built to exacting specifications so that their architectural conditions legitimate the rendering of justice and discovery of natural fact. The on-site commemoration of the struggle for civil rightsSeneca, Selma, and Stonewallreminds people of slow but significant political progress and of unfinished business. What do all these places have in common? Thomas F. Gieryn calls these locations truth-spots, places that lend credibility to beliefs and claims about natural and social reality, about the past and future, and about identity and the transcendent. In Truth-Spots, Gieryn gives readers an elegant, rigorous rendering of the provenance of ideas, uncovering the geographic location where they are found or made, a spot built up with material stuff and endowed with cultural meaning and value. These kinds of placesincluding botanical gardens, naturalists field-sites, Henry Fords open-air historical museum, and churches and chapels along the pilgrimage way to Santiago de Compostela in Spainwould seem at first to have little in common. But each is a truth-spot, a place that makes people believe. Truth may well be the daughter of time, Gieryn argues, but it is also the son of place. *Review In this elegant volume, Gieryn demonstrates the wildly divergent ways by which specific places give rise to interpretive frames for making sense of experience. Along the way, Gieryn serves as a masterly tour guidethe sort of guide who offers insight rather than patter, open-endedness in place of simplistic closure, and just enough of his own personality to keep us interested but never so much that we grow weary of him. Gieryn completely convinces us not just that place matters, but that different places matter differently. This is a charming, thoughtful, and clever book by a gifted writer. (Steven Epstein, Northwestern University) In a globalizing world of digitized everything and virtual reality, have particular places become as unreal and irrelevant as some claim? Gieryns answer to this question is a firm no. These truth-spots include places of prophecy or individual enlightenment, pilgrim roads and sites where science is made, courthouses where justice or injustice is served, and the commemorative birthplaces of social movements. Gieryn develops his exemplary cases not as a sociological treatise but as a kind of travelogue. The result is one of the most engaging and readable books that Ive read in some time, as entertaining as it is enlightening. (Robert Kohler, University of Pennsylvania) About the Author Thomas F. Gieryn is the Rudy Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Indiana University Bloomington.

Author: Edgar Vincent File Type: pdf Legendary for his exploits in war and love, Admiral Horatio Nelson comes into clear view in this captivating new biography.This is a wonderful book, the best modern biography of Britains greatest admiral.John Keegan, *Daily TelegraphA great biography and a poignant love story.Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic MonthlyA masterly biography, cool and sharp in long shots, intimately persuasive in close focus, at all times difficult to put down and as timely as it is suggestive in its implications.Hilary Spurling, New York Times Book Review*A splendid biography, not only because it is well written and well researched, but also because it neither seeks to demean the hero nor excuse the man. Heroism becomes the more remarkable when it is shown by people who in other ways are very like ourselves.L. G. Mitchell, *Times Literary SupplementVincent has written a masterful biography of a military man that examines the nuts and bolts of leadership in an entertaining and compelling way. . . . If you only read one biography of Nelson among the hundreds available, it should be this one.Paul Carbray, The Gazette* (Montreal, Quebec)From Publishers WeeklyThe approaching bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar has inspired a number of books on the Royal Navy and its great admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805). Retired business executive Vincent follows a long and successful tradition of British writers who are neither academicians nor professionals with this comprehensive biography. Making extensive use of archival and published sources, Vincent provides a perceptive, empathetic analysis of a man who throughout his life focused talent and energy on the pursuit of ambition and self-presentation. Vincents Nelson did not just seek love and fame he equated them. At the age of 18 he consciously decided to be a hero, and his strong point remained self-confidence. Nelson increasingly identified his personal interests with the public welfare. He was prone to histrionics and inordinately fond of the first person singular. Yet at the same time he incorporated, to a degree unusual for military officers at any period, the virtues of communication, negotiation and collaboration. Vincent makes the telling point that, far from being the rule-breaking innovator of many accounts, Nelson was an organization man and a skilled player of navy politics, able to mobilize support for even his high-risk operations. He cultivated a charismatic personality to win the hearts and minds of his fellow officers, eventually succeeding in welding a group of standoffish, individualistic captains into a band of brothers. Initially unsuccessful with women, Nelson was fortunate in his eventual relationship with Emma Hamilton. Far from being the embarrassing encumbrance of some saltier biographies, she emerges here as meeting Nelsons need for unconditional acceptance in a way that freed his formidable powers to concentrate fully on the professional achievements that earned him immortality-ironically, at the expense of his loved ones welfare and well-being. Vincents Nelson, for good and ill, would have made the same choice consciously, without hesitation. 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistVincent has interwoven two separate strands--the professional and the emotional--of Horatio Nelsons life into one superlative biography of the man and the hero. While Nelsons military exploits are all well-documented, and his infamous affair with Lady Emma Hamilton common knowledge, the author probes beneath the surface of the obvious, plumbing the depths of a man with an insatiable desire for admiration and attention. An energetic and charismatic leader who inspired devotion among all who served under him, his personal and martial triumphs were paradoxically rooted in both his insecurity and his egomania. Like most larger-than-life figures, Nelson was a mass of contradictions and extremes. Rather than paralyzing him, these opposing personality forces served to energize and motivate him in public and private matters. This definitive chronicle is underscored by Vincents astute analysis of Nelsons intimate persona as well as his celebrity status. Margaret Flanagan American Library Association. lt

Author: James W. McKinnon File Type: pdf In his final accomplishment of an extraordinarily distinguished career, James W. McKinnon considers the musical practices of the early Church in this incisive examination of the history of Christian chant from the years a.d. 200 to 800. The result is an important book that is certain to have a long-lasting impact on musicology, religious studies, and history. **