ancient

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 354 pages. From the turn of the fifth century to the beginning of the eighteenth, Christian writers were fascinated and troubled by the "Problem of Paganism," which this book identifies and examines for the first time. How could the wisdom and virtue of the great thinkers of antiquity be reconciled with the fact that they were pagans and, many thought, damned? Related questions were raised by encounters with contemporary pagans in northern Europe, Mongolia, and, later, America and China. Pagans and Philosophers explores how writers-philosophers and theologians, but also poets such as Dante, Chaucer, and Langland, and travelers such as Las Casas and Ricci-tackled the Problem of Paganism. Augustine and Boethius set its terms, while Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury were important early advocates of pagan wisdom and virtue. University theologians such as Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Bradwardine, and later thinkers such as Ficino, Valla, More, Bayle, and Leibniz, explored the difficulty in depth. Meanwhile, Albert the Great inspired Boethius of Dacia and others to create a relativist conception of scientific knowledge that allowed Christian teachers to remain faithful Aristotelians. At the same time, early anthropologists such as John of Piano Carpini, John Mandeville, and Montaigne developed other sorts of relativism in response to the issue. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 528 pages, b&w illustrations. A groundbreaking and comprehensive history of the Roman Peace from one of the leading historians of the ancient world, Clean copy

Hardcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 238 pages. The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue. Although it has been neglected (compared to such works as the Republic and Symposium), it is beginning to receive a great deal of scholarly attention. Book 10 of the Laws contains Plato's fullest defence of the existence of the gods, and his last word on their nature, as well as a presentation and defence of laws against impiety (e.g. atheism). Plato's primary aim is to defend the idea that the gods exist and that they are good - this latter meaning that they do not neglect human beings and cannot be swayed by prayers and sacrifices to overlook injustice. As such, the Laws is an important text for anyone interested in ancient Greek religion, philosophy, and politics generally, and the later thought of Plato in particular. Robert Mayhew presents a new translation, with commentary, of Book X of the Laws. His primary aim in the translation is fidelity to the Greek. His commentary focuses on philosophical issues (broadly understood to include religion and politics), and deals with philological matters only when doing so serves to better explain those issues. Knowledge of Greek is not assumed, and the Greek that does appear has been transliterated. It is the first commentary in English of any kind on Laws X for nearly 140 years. Light pencil notations to about 15 pages.

Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 384 pages. Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato's political thought, enormously influential and much discussed in the modern world as well as the ancient. Schofield discusses Plato's ideas on education, democracy and its shortcomings, the role of knowledge in government, utopia and the idea of community, money and its grip on the psyche, and ideological uses of religion. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a very good dust jacket with light fading to spine, 342 pages. The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his Platonic Theology, translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with fading to spine and front cover, 397 pages. The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his Platonic Theology, translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York , Phaidon, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 286 pages, original rust colored cloth with gilt design. 270 illustrations, many in color including fold-out plates. Tipped-in color frontispiece, endpaper maps and charts in rear. Clear acetate dust jacket in very good condition. Slipcase is worn and cracked.

Hardcover. London, Duckworth, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with fading to spine. A magisterial assessment of the major historian of early Byzantium, by one of today's leading historians of late antiquity. Most of our understanding of the age of Justinian is based on the works of Procopius of Caesarea, the most important Greek historian of late antiquity. Many modern histories of the period virtually paraphrase his major work, the Wars. Today, questions of how we are to reconcile the Wars with Procopius' two minor works-the panegyrical Building and the sensational Secret History, still dominates current scholarship. 297 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. US, Prestel USA, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 264 pages. Hardcover in slipcase. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. This elegant volume is the first comprehensive published study in English of the finely carved wooden covers designed to protect fragile Tibetan Buddhist texts. From the 11th through 14th centuries, Tibetan monks worked tirelessly to transcribe the life and teachings of the Buddha onto paper. Highly skilled craftsmen then covered these pages with wooden boards that had been elaborately and painstakingly carved, gilded, and painted. The MacLean Collection, based in Chicago, has significant holdings of these extremely rare and ornately decorated objects. The first and most comprehensive of its kind, this lavishly produced, oversize volume features numerous illustrations of magnificent book covers from Tibet as well as several examples from other cultures. The volume tells the fascinating history of these objects, examines the materials from which they were carved, and traces stylistic influences from Kashmir, India, Nepal, and China.

Hardcover. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 390 pages, b&w illustrations. From the stony desolation of Jordan's desert, it is but a step through a doorway into the bath house of the Qusayr 'Amra hunting lodge. Inside, multicolored frescoes depict scenes from courtly life and the hunt, along with musicians, dancing girls, and naked bathing women. The traveler is transported to the luxurious and erotic world of a mid-eighth-century Muslim Arab prince. For scholars, though, Qusayr 'Amra, probably painted in the 730s or 740s, has proved a mirage, its concreteness dissolved by doubts about date, patron, and meaning. This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through a compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It illuminates not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of late antique Syria. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Asia Society, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 121 pages, illustrated in b&w, some color. Dust with light edgewear, minor fade to spine. Previous owner's embossed stamp on front fly leaf. Errata pamphlet laid in.

Hardcover. Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, dust jacket with light fading to spine, 212 pages, b&w illustrations. In this book, Gabriel Herman offers a new interpretation of Greek xenia, a term traditionally rendered as 'guest-friendship'. Drawing on contemporary literary sources and inscriptions as well as anthropology, sociology, and comparative evidence from other times, he shows that xenia was a bond of fictitious kinship akin to godparenthood, rather than a tie of hospitality or ordinary 'friendship'. Starting off from this proposition, he develops a dynamic model of the formation of elite relationships and values. He explores the concepts of obligation and loyalty, gift and bribe, treason and patriotism, and places the Greek city within a new context of power relations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 320 pages. 49 plates & illustrations + 8 maps. The story of the Treveri, a Gaulish tribe encountered in the pages of Julius Caesar (to whom they caused considerable trouble), tracing from historical and archaeological sources the many changes caused by the process of Romanization. Clean, in a bright dust jacket.

Softcover. NY/Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 64 pages illustrated in color and b&w. An unrivaled illustrated reference source on fighting men and commanders of the period. The Sassanians ruled the last great imperial Empire of Persia before the Arab conquests of the 7th century. Rome's only equal in the classical world, the Sassanian Empire had an enormous impact on the development of architecture, mythology, arts, music, military tactics and technology. Within the Sassanian military, the cavalry was the most influential element, and Sassanian cavalry tactics were adopted by the Romans, Arabs, and Turks. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Macmillan, 1st, 1891, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 352 pages. Plus index. Hardcover with moderate edge wear to cover boards. Many b&w illust, fold-out plates. Previous owner's signature half-title pg. Moderate foxing to pages.

Hardcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, reprint, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 625 pages, 700 b&w plates. Light edgewear to dust jacket, small tear; previous price sticker on front flap. Foxing to top edge. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Claredon Press, 1st, 1888, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 690 pages plus 3 folding maps in rear. Greek text with English introduction and commentary. Ex-library copy with light stamping, residue. Rebound with spine labels. Clean, unmarked text.

Hardcover. London, Oxford University Press, 1953, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 708 pages. Hardcover. This is Volume two only. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Some darkening to endpapers and to a few pages. Dust jacket with chipping, darkening to edges. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Basic Books, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 566 pages. Song of Wrath tells the story of Classical Athens' victorious Ten Years' War (431-421 BC) against grim Sparta -- the first decade of the terrible Peloponnesian War that turned the Golden Age of Greece to lead. Historian J.E. Lendon presents a sweeping tale of pitched battles by land and sea, sieges, sacks, raids, and deeds of cruelty and guile -- along with courageous acts of mercy, surprising charity, austere restraint, and arrogant resistance. Recounting the rise of democratic Athens to great-power status, and the resulting fury of authoritarian Sparta, Greece's traditional leader, Lendon portrays the causes and strategy of the war as a duel over national honor, a series of acts of revenge. A story of new pride challenging old, Song of Wrath is the first work of Ancient Greek history for the post-cold-war generation. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 2nd pr., 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 327 pages. John Damascene, a monk near Jerusalem in the early 700s, never set foot in the Byzantine Empire, yet he had a great influence on Byzantine theology. This book, the first to present an overall account of John's life and work, sets him in the context of the early synods of the Church that took place in the Palestinian monasteries during the first century of Arab rule.

Hardcover. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 322 pages. In this groundbreaking work, C. D. C. Reeve uses a fundamental problem--the Primacy Dilemma--to explore Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, dialectic, philosophy of mind, and theology in a new way. At a time when Aristotle is most often studied piecemeal, Reeve attempts to see him both in detail and as a whole, so that it is from detailed analysis of hundreds of particular passages, drawn from dozens of Aristotelian treatises, and translated in full that his overall picture of Aristotle emerges. Primarily a book for philosophers and advanced students with an interest in the fundamental problems with which Aristotle is grappling, Substantial Knowledge's clear, non-technical and engaging style will appeal to any reader eager to explore Aristotle's difficult but extraordinarily rewarding thought. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. London/NY, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd pr., 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 233 pages. China's role in world history has been controversial, especially as seen through an economic lens. This book presents an alternative interpretation of that role, less exclusively economic, more broadly based, and focused on the T'ang period, one of China's acknowledged golden ages. It shows how a different China, Buddhist or Taoist rather than Confucian, aristocratic as much as meritocratic, achieved, through openness to the outside world and partnership with its elites, a multiple preeminence in politics, economics, society and the intellect, not unlike that enjoyed by the United States today. Within a looser web of globalization, the T'ang period and its dynamics offers a distant mirror of our own time, casting a new light on issues in contemporary politics. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 442 pages. The Nart sagas are to the Caucasus what Greek mythology is to Western civilization. Tales of the Narts presents a wide selection of fascinating tales preserved as a living tradition among the peoples of Ossetia in southern Russia, a region where ethnic identities have been maintained for thousands of years in the face of major cultural upheavals. A mythical tribe of tall, nomad warriors, the Narts were courageous, bold, and good-hearted. But they were also capable of cruelty, envy, and forceful measures to settle disputes. In this wonderfully vivid and accessible compilation of stories, colorful and exciting heroes, heroines, villains, and monsters pursue their destinies though a series of peculiar exploits, often with the intervention of ancient gods.