The Syme Papers

The Syme Papers PDF Author: Benjamin Markovits
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571268315
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. Laughed at, mocked, and dismissed at every turn, Pitt has dedicated the best part of an unremarkable academic career attempting to prove the genius of Samuel Highgate Syme (b.1794, Baltimore; soldier, geologist, inventor). Pitt's postulation is simple enough: Syme, through some fault, wrong-doing, conspiracy or mischance, has not been credited with the recognition he deserves for hitting upon a key discovery in the advance of modern science - the theory of continental drift. Lacking the crucial last piece of the puzzle to convince his peers and normalize his family life, Pitt's emotional equilibrium is stabilised in a magical stroke of fortune when he uncovers a contemporary manuscript written by a fledgling German scientist, Friedrich Muller, which recounts a year (1821) in the company of the irrepressible Syme. Switching between these beguiling and colourful narratives, The Syme Papers takes the reader on an odyssey into the heart of Maryland and Virginia in the 1820s by way of London and Texas today. An epic stew of intellectual procrastination, early nineteenth-century picaresque and late twentieth-century angst, it is a novel of genius and failure; of a man who thought he could prove the world was hollow, and in the glorious process of discovery, broke his own heart. Teeming with comic detail and fierce intelligence, The Syme Papers recreates a time when to question the world and the origins of creation was the greatest project a scientist could undertake.

The Syme Papers

The Syme Papers PDF Author: Benjamin Markovits
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571268315
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 548

Get Book Here

Book Description
Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. Laughed at, mocked, and dismissed at every turn, Pitt has dedicated the best part of an unremarkable academic career attempting to prove the genius of Samuel Highgate Syme (b.1794, Baltimore; soldier, geologist, inventor). Pitt's postulation is simple enough: Syme, through some fault, wrong-doing, conspiracy or mischance, has not been credited with the recognition he deserves for hitting upon a key discovery in the advance of modern science - the theory of continental drift. Lacking the crucial last piece of the puzzle to convince his peers and normalize his family life, Pitt's emotional equilibrium is stabilised in a magical stroke of fortune when he uncovers a contemporary manuscript written by a fledgling German scientist, Friedrich Muller, which recounts a year (1821) in the company of the irrepressible Syme. Switching between these beguiling and colourful narratives, The Syme Papers takes the reader on an odyssey into the heart of Maryland and Virginia in the 1820s by way of London and Texas today. An epic stew of intellectual procrastination, early nineteenth-century picaresque and late twentieth-century angst, it is a novel of genius and failure; of a man who thought he could prove the world was hollow, and in the glorious process of discovery, broke his own heart. Teeming with comic detail and fierce intelligence, The Syme Papers recreates a time when to question the world and the origins of creation was the greatest project a scientist could undertake.

Historia Augusta Papers

Historia Augusta Papers PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This volume brings together fifteen studies written since 1972 on the notorious Historia Augusta. Syme advances the theory, supported by computer evidence, that the papers are the work of only one person, rather than six as they purport, and that they were written considerably later than the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. He argues that, taken as a whole, the papers are a work of "fictional history" and constitute an elaborate and erudite hoax.

Approaching the Roman Revolution

Approaching the Roman Revolution PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198767064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
This book presents a series of previously unpublished studies on aspects of the Roman Republic by one of the greatest Roman historians of all time, Sir Ronald Syme (1903-1989), the author of The Roman Revolution.

The Roman Revolution

The Roman Revolution PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191647187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconventional narrative, which quotes from ancient evidence, refers seldomly to modern authorities, and states controversial opinions quite openly. The result is a book which is both fresh and compelling.

Anatolica

Anatolica PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
No historian of ancient Rome in this century has had a greater influence on historical research or won greater international acclaim than Sir Ronald Syne (1903-89). His outstanding position was due mainly to his first two books, The Roman Revolution, which appeared in 1939, and Tacitus (twovolumes, 1958) - although he went on to produce many more monographs, and seven volumes of his Roman Papers have so far appeared. The long gap between his first two books is partly explained by the war, which took him on official duties to Belgrade and Ankara; and he spent the years 1943-5 atIstanbul as Professor of Classical Philology. It was known that in spite of the war, Syme had continued to write in these years, in particular `Strabonia', investigations into the famous ancient Geography composed by Strabo, a native of Asia Minor in the time of Augustus. After Syme's death, themanuscript was discovered among his papers: he had not quite completed the work, but what he had written, with almost complete annotation, represents a substantial and fascinating study of the historical geography of Anatolia in the Hellenistic and early Roman period. Syme ruthlessly dissects theoften incoherent and inconsistent text of Strabo, at the same time providing rich detail on client kings, Roman generals and emperors, writers and travellers. Above all, he shows unequalled ability to understand the landscape and settlement of Anatolia; and the work is composed in the same forcefuland elegant style that made his other books classics of historical literature.

The Syme Papers

The Syme Papers PDF Author: Benjamin Markovits
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571217915
Category : Continental drift
Languages : en
Pages : 591

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Book Description
Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. Laughed at, mocked and dismissed at every turn, Pitt has spent the best part of an unremarkable academic career attempting to prove the genius of Samuel Highgate Syme (b 1794, Baltimore; soldier, geologist, inventor). After years of frustration, Pitt finally stumbles into the good fortune he hopes will make his name: he uncovers a manuscript written by a fledgling scientist which recounts a year in the company of the irrespresible Syme. Teeming with comic detail and fierce intelligence, The Syme Papers recreates a time when to question the world and the origin of creation was the greatest project a scientist could undertake. It is a novel of genius and failure; of a man who thought he could prove the world was hollow, and in the glorious process of discover, broke his own heart.

Werner's nomenclature of colours, with additions by P. Syme

Werner's nomenclature of colours, with additions by P. Syme PDF Author: Patrick Syme
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Color
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description


The Provincial at Rome

The Provincial at Rome PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This volume offers a new insight into the development of a great historian, as well as giving an exciting and immensely readable new approach to late Republican and early Imperial Roman history. Drafted in 1934-35, but laid aside in favour of 'The Roman Revolution' (1939), 'The Provincial at Rome' was to have been Ronald Syme's first book. It is a brilliantly written study of the enlargement of the Roman elite in the early empire, an analysis, in thirteen chapters, of the Emperor Claudius' enrolment of 'Gallic chieftains' into the Senate in AD 48. The edition also includes five unpublished papers dealing with Rome's conquest of the Balkans, a region Syme knew intimately. "

Childish Loves: A Novel

Childish Loves: A Novel PDF Author: Benjamin Markovits
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393346277
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
The last piece of a literary puzzle falls into place in the final novel of Benjamin Markovits’s Byron trilogy. When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, Ben Markovits inherits unpublished manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron—including the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment. Ben’s own literary career is in the doldrums, and he tries to revive it by publishing and writing about his dead friend, whose reimagining of Byron’s lost memoirs—titled Childish Loves—may provide a key to Sullivan’s own life and tarnished reputation. Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan’s writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron-inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter’s past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.

The Augustan Aristocracy

The Augustan Aristocracy PDF Author: Ronald Syme
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198147312
Category : History
Languages : la
Pages : 574

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Book Description
While the monarchy established by Caesar Augustus has attracted much scholarly attention, far less has been said about the reemergence of the old nobility at that time after years of civil war. One clear reason for this has been the lack of reliable evidence from the period. This book goes backward to the early years of the first century B.C. and forward to the reign of Nero in search of documentation of the Augustan aristocracy. Syme draws particularly on the Annals of Tacitus to cover 150 years in the history of Roman families, chronicling their splendor and success, as well as their subsequent fall within the embrace of the dynasty.