"In this gripping sequel to his bestselling 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed-why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared foreverAt the end of the acclaimed history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos. Filled with lessons for today about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities"--

Shapiro argues that Western freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God's image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God's world. These values gave us the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens were the foundations of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence; civilizations that rejected Jerusalem and Athens have collapsed into dust. Now we are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, favoring instead moral subjectivism and the rule of passion. And we are watching our civilization collapse ... -- adapted from information provided

Arendt’s penetrating observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute a major contribution to political philosophy. In this book she describes the perplexing crises which modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill once more the vital essence of these concepts.

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies is part of a major new series of Oxford Handbooks. The volume on Jewish Studies reflects the aim of the series to produce distinctive and original surveys of today's interests and directions in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Handbook covers all the main areas currently taught and researched as part of Jewish Studies in universities throughout the world, especially in Europe, the United States, and Israel. The span of the volume chronologically and geographically is thus enormous, but all contributors have in common their expertise in the study of the history, literature, religion, and culture of the Jews. Jewish Studies is a comparatively young discipline which has grown over the past fifty years in a somewhat undisciplined way. In a period of great upheaval for Jews following the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, the emergence of new forms of dialogue between Jews and Christians, deepening divisions between secular and religious Jews, and unprecedented assimilation by diaspora Jews to the wider culture, the study of Jewish traditions and history has rarely been dispassionate. This is a good time to examine where we are and where the subject is going. There have been some attempts in recent years to encapsulate current conclusions about particular aspects of Jewish Studies, but these other works aim to provide compendia of agreed facts rather than a survey of interests and directions such as is found in the Oxford Handbook. The Handbook begins with an examination of Jewish Studies as an academic discipline in its own right. The first half of the volume is organized chronologically, followed by sections on languages and literature, general aspects of religion, and other branches of Jewish Studies which have each accumulated a considerable corpus of scholarship over the past half-century. This substantial volume of c. 400,000 words reflects the current state of scholarship as analysed by an international team of experts in the different and varied fields represented within contemporary Jewish Studies.

A deluxe, two-volume, extensively illustrated edition of the best-selling history of the world chronicles a rich panorama of human achievement and the search for knowledge in fields ranging from geography to medicine, art to zoology.

Product Description The question of culture has become central for a new generation of scholars raised in a world of television and mass production. At the same time debates about culture have become a point of reference for criticism of current trends in academia and society, variously defended or derided on the grounds of "multiculturalism," "canonicity," and political correctness." In his re-examination off these debates, Stanley Aronowitz traces the history of the cultural issue - in both its British and American manifestations - and relates it to the contemporary rethinking of the nature of knowledge and culture. Roll Over Beethoven analyzes topics as diverse as the history of American radicalism, the sociology if science, the impact of the Library of Congress on the organization of knowledge, and the institutionalization of film studies. Aronowitz's account of recent controversies over "political correctness" reveals that the current culture wars reflect profound differences among scholars over the proper role of the university and the character of legitimate intellectual knowledge. Within this broad reappraisal of the cultural question, which is embedded in the intellectual history of the 20th century, Aronowitz offers an "interpretive genealogy" of cultural studies that describes both the evolution of the field and the political and social contexts in which it developed. He argues that cultural studies exhibit a tendency toward transgression that is rarely explicit but always present and, at its best, not merely interdisciplinary but anti-disciplinary. From Publishers Weekly In this "interpretive genealogy of cultural studies," sociologist Aronowitz ( The Politics of Identity ) offers a history of this field with an eye toward examining how the nature of intellectual knowledge is defined. Though the book meanders from present-day politics to the historical debate over "high" and "low" culture to the role of the New Left in popular culture, Aronowitz's style is fairly accessible. Some arguments are undeveloped, as when he urges the Left to vigorously support the First Amendment but then suggests that "any community has a right to set limits on what it considers acceptable speech." In a chapter on the cultural politics of the Popular Front, Aronowitz offers an engaging memoir of his Bronx boyhood, recalling his rich encounters with classical and popular music and his study of political economy at a Communist Party school; he then analyzes novels and plays of the era, defending them against charges of populist oversimplification. After addressing current debates over the idea of an academic "canon," he notes that "virtually any significant educational innovation already has a history somewhere in the annals of the American academic system." Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Through his books on the labor movement, social theory, education theory, and the politics of science, Aronowitz has become one of the most interesting intellectuals on the contemporary scene. His latest work traces the emergence of "Cultural Studies" and emphasizes its invigorating impact on the humanities and social sciences. Written in an entertaining and informative style, Roll Over Beethoven could become the book that helps introduce large numbers of readers to the exciting new field of cultural interpretation. Individual chapters explore such topics as "high" versus "low" culture, culture and politics in the 1930s, the state of popular culture in contemporary America, and the relationship of cultural studies to the literary and philosophical canon. Along the way, Aronowitz offers a sophisticated critique of the revanchist critics of the modern university (Allan Bloom, William Bennett, et al.). This is a first-rate text that deserves the widest possible readership. - Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

George Soros made billions anticipating seismic changes in the financial markets and has used that money to try and change the world. In this book he brings that commitment to the subject that has preoccupied him since 2001: the state of America. He looks at the fatal flaws not merely of the current Administration - with whom his antagonism is well documented-but with the wider American view of the world. The "stateless statesman," uninhibited by the need to temper his message to suit partisan politics, here delivers his most forceful and penetrating description of how the country that should provide a beacon for good governance around the world has lost direction - such that it believes its own rhetoric and myth-making, in defiance of the facts that will shape all our futures. Soros insists that "America must undergo a change of heart." And if we're looking for somewhere to start, he says, America had better begin by renouncing the "feel-good" misconceptions implicit in the War on Terror.

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along--a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history. In more than two hundred original essays, this book brings together the nation's many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what "Made in America" means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric--cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape.--From publisher description.

A dictionary of cultural terms, covering a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and exact sciences. Separate chapters are dedicated to American history, politics and geography.

"An insider's look into the decades of research behind Zecharia Sitchin's books as well as an in-depth overview of his theories and discoveries. Includes carefully selected chapters from the Earth Chronicles series as well as never-before-published letters, articles, and lectures. Each piece includes an introduction, offering context and insight into Sitchin's passionate work and revealing the man behind the theories. Explains the genesis of The 12th Planet, the Anunnaki influences on the Sumerian civilization, the orbit of Nibiru, the prehistory of the Americas, the extraterrestrial origins of modern man, and much more [...] -- provided by publisher

"We have always believed that Queen Victoria defined the mores of the nineteenth century. Yet Peter Gay, one of our most eminent cultural historians, asserts in this radical work that it is the sexually emboldened Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), the most influential Austrian writer of his time, who provides a better symbol for the age." "In a set of nine closely linked chapters, each focusing on major topics of bourgeois life, Gay synthesizes three decades of far-ranging research, presenting a lucid reinterpretation of the nineteenth-century middle class - its passions, politics, religion, and anxieties - that we can only think we know well. Extending his examination back to 1815, at the close of the age of Napoleon, Gay chronicles a hundred-year period that witnessed not only the emergence of the middle class but also the birth of a culture that remains vital today. Throughout Schnitzler's Century, he does justice to the complexity of the era, showing that there was superstition as well as science, cruelty as well as humanity, anxiety as well as Eros. But digging deep into bourgeois life all the way from Philadelphia to Moscow, London to Rome, he has recognized a general Victorian style through the Western world, however colored each country was by characteristic local habits." "Schnitzler's Century is not revision for its own sake, but for the sake of the truth about the past. With the daring Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler as his companion, Gay provides startling perspectives on once-familiar subjects. Schnitzler's Century provides astonishing insights into an age that made us largely what we are today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A comprehensive, integral account of European life, society, politics, arts, science, philosophy, economics, manners, and morals of the epoch.

Was Western civilization founded by ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians? Can the ancient Egyptians usefully be called black? Did the ancient Greeks borrow religion, science, and philosophy from the Egyptians and Phoenicians? Have scholars i

In Union Grove, early spring is a challenging season, known as the "six weeks want," a time when fresh food is scarce and the winter stores are dwindling. The town is struggling in particular this year as the Hudson River trade route to Albany has been halted by the local plantation tycoon Stephen Bullock, who has deemed it too resource-intensive and is now striving for self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, after returning from his travels around what is left of the United States, Daniel Earle is intent on resurrecting a newspaper for the community, and finds an interesting story to cover when representatives of a group of anti-establishment, hyper-liberals known as the Berkshire People's Republic arrive in the town.

"Unthinking Eurocentrism, a seminal and award-winning work in postcolonial studies first published in 1994, explored Eurocentrism as an interlocking network of buried premises, embedded narratives, and submerged tropes that constituted a broadly shared epistemology. Within a transdisciplinary study, the authors argued that the debates about Eurocentrism and post/coloniality must be considered within a broad historical sweep that goes at least as far back as the various 1492s: the Inquisition, the Expulsion of Jews and Muslims, the Conquest of the Americas, and the Transatlantic slave trade; a process which culminates in the post War attempts to radically decolonize global culture. Ranging over multiple geographies, the book deprovincialized media/cultural studies through a polycentric approach, while analysing in depth such issues as postcolonial hybridity, antinomies of Enlightenment, the tropes of empire, gender and rescue fantasies, the racial politics of casting, and the limitations of positive image analysis. The substantial new afterword in this 20th anniversary new edition brings these issues into the present by charting recent transformations of the intellectual debates, as terms such as the transnational, the commons, indigeneity, and the Red Atlantic have come to the fore. The afterword also explores some cinematic trends such as indigenous media and postcolonial adaptations that have gained strength over the past two decades, along with others, such as Nollywood, that have emerged with startling force. Winner of the Katherine Kovacs Singer Best Film Book Award, the book has been translated in full or in its entirety into diverse languages from Spanish to Farsi. This expanded edition of a ground-breaking text proposes analytical grids relevant to a wide variety of fields including postcolonial studies, literary studies, anthropology, media studies, cultural studies, and critical race studies. "--

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Tradition, by esteemed sociologist Edward Shils, was the first book to fully explore the history, significance, and future of tradition as a whole. Intent on questioning the meaning of the antitraditionalist impulse in today's society, Shils argues here that the tendency to distrust and rebel against tradition is at the heart of tradition itself; only through suspicion and defiance does tradition actually move forward. Revealing the importance of tradition to social and political institutions, technology, science, literature, religion, and scholarship, Tradition remains the definitive work on this vital element of our society.--provided by publisher

For more than twenty years David Brion Davis has been recognized as a leading authority on the moral and ideological responses to slavery in the Western world. From Homicide to Slavery, Davis's first book of collected essays, brings together selections reflecting his wide-ranging interests in colonial history, Afro-American history, the social sciences, and American literature. The essays are interconnected by Davis's central concern with violence, irrationality, and the definition of moral limits during a period when Americans believed they were breaking free from historical constraints and acquiring new powers of self-perfection. Topics range from a socially revealing murder trial in 1843 to debates over capital punishment, movements of counter-subverison, the iconography of race, the cowboy as an American hero, the portrayal of violence in American literature, the historiography of slavery, and the British and American antislavery movements.

In this book, the distinguished historian Carl Schorske--author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fin-de-Siécle Vienna --draws together a series of essays that reveal the changing place of history in nineteenth-and twentieth-century cultures. In most intellectual and artistic fields, Schorske argues, twentieth-century Europeans and Americans have come to do their thinking without history. Modern art, modern architecture, modern music, modern science--all have defined themselves not as emerging from or even reacting against the past, but as detached from it in a new, autonomous cultural space. This is in stark contrast to the historicism of the nineteenth century, he argues, when ideas about the past pervaded most fields of thought from philosophy and politics to art, music, and literature. However, Schorske also shows that the nineteenth century's attachment to thinking with history and the modernist way of thinking without history are more than just antitheses. They are different ways of trying to address the problems of modernity, to give shape and meaning to European civilization in the era of industrial capitalism and mass politics. Schorske begins by reflecting on his own vocation as it was shaped by the historical changes he has seen sweep across political and academic culture. Then he offers a European sampler of ways in which nineteenth-century European intellectuals used conceptions of the past to address the problems of their day: the city as community and artifact; the function of art; social dislocation. Narrowing his focus to Fin-de-Siécle Vienna in a second group of essays, he analyzes the emergence of ahistorical modernism in that city. Against the background of Austria's persistent, conflicting Baroque and Enlightenment traditions, Schorske examines three Viennese pioneers of modernism--Adolf Loos, Gustav Mahler, and Sigmund Freud--as they sought new orientation in their fields. In a concluding essay, Schorske turns his attention to thinking about history. In the context of a postmodern culture, when other disciplines that had once abandoned history are discovering new uses for it, he reflects on the nature and limits of history for the study of culture. Originally published in 1998. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. -- "Kirkus Reviews"