A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture

A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture PDF Author: Richard Stoneman
Publisher:
ISBN: 1107167698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Explores how Alexander the Great has influenced literature, art and culture in Europe and the Middle East over two millennia.

A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture

A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture PDF Author: Richard Stoneman
Publisher:
ISBN: 1107167698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores how Alexander the Great has influenced literature, art and culture in Europe and the Middle East over two millennia.

Historiographical Alexander

Historiographical Alexander PDF Author: Borja Antela-Bernádez
Publisher: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra / Coimbra University Press
ISBN: 9892624629
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In a famous statement, Ulrich Wilcken argues that each historian has his own Alexander. A critical examination of the traditions in Historiographic Alexander allows to reconsider both our ideas of alterity and success, and how great can be a human being, or to what extent what was great in the past still has to be accepted as such in our present days. To sum up, to revisit Alexander from the eyes of the historians in the Contemporary Age offers a genuine opportunity to rethink History as such, and to evaluate how can we imagine new ways to explain the past in order to build a rich appreciation of the present in order to imagine brand new futures. The aim of the following pages is to review Alexander’s portraits and concerns in the works and scopes of the more recent historical traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Alexander Romance

The Alexander Romance PDF Author: Krzysztof Nawotka
Publisher: Barkhuis
ISBN: 9492444739
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
The Alexander Romance is a difficult text to define and to assess justly. From its earliest days it was an open text, which was adapted into a variety of cultures with meanings that themselves vary, and yet seem to carry a strong undercurrent of homogeneity: Alexander is the hero who cannot become a god, and who encapsulates the desires and strivings of the host cultures. The papers assembled in this volume, which were originally presented at a conference at the University of Wroc?aw, Poland, in October 2015, all face the challenge of defining the Alexander Romance. Some focus on quite specific topics while others address more overarching themes. They form a cohesive set of approaches to the delicate positioning of the text between history and literature. From its earliest elements in Hellenistic Egypt, to its latest reworkings in the Byzantine and Islamic Middle East, the Alexander Romance shows itself to be a work that steadily engages with such questions as kingship, the limits of human (and Greek) nature, and the purpose of history. The Romance began as a history, but only by becoming literature could it achieve such a deep penetration of east and west.

The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC

The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC PDF Author: Graham Shipley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134065310
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
The Greek World After Alexander 323–30 BC examines social changes in the old and new cities of the Greek world and in the new post-Alexandrian kingdoms. An appraisal of the momentous military and political changes after the era of Alexander, this book considers developments in literature, religion, philosophy, and science, and establishes how far they are presented as radical departures from the culture of Classical Greece or were continuous developments from it. Graham Shipley explores the culture of the Hellenistic world in the context of the social divisions between an educated elite and a general population at once more mobile and less involved in the political life of the Greek city.

Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander

Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander PDF Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299232832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The charismatic Alexander the Great of Macedon (356–323 B.C.E.) was one of the most successful military commanders in history, conquering Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, central Asia, and the lands beyond as far as Pakistan and India. Alexander has been, over the course of two millennia since his death at the age of thirty-two, the central figure in histories, legends, songs, novels, biographies, and, most recently, films. In 2004 director Oliver Stone’s epic film Alexander generated a renewed interest in Alexander the Great and his companions, surroundings, and accomplishments, but the critical response to the film offers a fascinating lesson in the contentious dialogue between historiography and modern entertainment. This volume brings together an intriguing mix of leading scholars in Macedonian and Greek history, Persian culture, film studies, classical literature, and archaeology—including some who were advisors for the film—and includes an afterword by Oliver Stone discussing the challenges he faced in putting Alexander’s life on the big screen. The contributors scrutinize Stone’s project from its inception and design to its production and reception, considering such questions as: Can a film about Alexander (and similar figures from history) be both entertaining and historically sound? How do the goals of screenwriters and directors differ from those of historians? How do Alexander’s personal relationships—with his mother Olympias, his wife Roxane, his lover Hephaistion, and others—affect modern perceptions of Alexander? Several of the contributors also explore reasons behind the film’s tepid response at the box office and subsequent controversies.

From Arrian to Alexander

From Arrian to Alexander PDF Author: A. B. Bosworth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198148630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book provides a new perspective on the sources of Alexander's reign by rigorously examining the methods of historians of the time, particularly those of Arrian. Revealing Arrian's attitude toward his subject matter, approach to sources, techniques in writing speeches, and the degree to which he imposed his own judgement of his subject matter, Bosworth presents a clearer and more accurate picture of the persona of Alexander the Great, while offering new insights into two vital problems of documentation--the Royal Journals and the purported Last Plans.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great PDF Author: Elizabeth Baynham
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472108589
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The literary tradition surrounding the Macedonian conqueror is rich, contradictory and complex. Much of what we know comes from the history of Quintus Curtius, who wrote a history of Alexander in the first century AD. Baynham explores Curtius' historical style and his presentation of the legendary king. She examines his use of ancient sources, and discusses why Curtius chose to preserve the information about Alexander that he did. She demonstrates that his work was a carefully planned narrative, and that he was not only interested in presenting Alexander as a clever ruler and accomplished tactician, but also as a human subject to the whims of chance, of fortuna .

Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction

Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction PDF Author: A. B. Bosworth
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199252756
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Ten essays from a symposium held at Newcastle University in 1997, which examine the general themes of kingship and imperialism by focusing on the romances that surround Alexander.

How History Gets Things Wrong

How History Gets Things Wrong PDF Author: Alex Rosenberg
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026234842X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Why we learn the wrong things from narrative history, and how our love for stories is hard-wired. To understand something, you need to know its history. Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong. Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It's not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature. Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful. Israel and Palestine, for example, have dueling narratives of dispossession that prevent one side from compromising with the other. Henry Kissinger applied lessons drawn from the Congress of Vienna to American foreign policy with disastrous results. Human evolution improved primate mind reading—the ability to anticipate the behavior of others, whether predators, prey, or cooperators—to get us to the top of the African food chain. Now, however, this hard-wired capacity makes us think we can understand history—what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States—by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story.

Ancient Macedonians in Greek and Roman Sources

Ancient Macedonians in Greek and Roman Sources PDF Author: Tim Howe
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
ISBN: 1910589977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Recent scholars have analysed ways in which authors of the Roman era appropriated the figure of Alexander the Great. The essays in this collection cast a wider net, to show how Classical Greek, Hellenistic and Roman authors reinterpret and sometimes misinterpret information on ancient Macedonians to serve their own literary and political aims. Although Roman ideas pervade the historiographical tradition, this volume shows that the manipulation of ancient Macedonian history largely occurred much earlier. It reflected the complicated dynastic politics of the Argead royal house, the efforts of Alexander himself to redefine Macedonian kingship, and the competing strategies of the Successors to claim his legacy. Facing the complexity of the source tradition about the ancient Macedonians yields a richer and more balanced reflection of both the history and the historiography of this important and controversial people.