Best of
Greece

1994

The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus


Aliki - 1994
    These myths featured gods and goddesses, mighty beings who look human but have amazing powers and live forever. Now you can meet these extraordinary characters and hear their legends, brought to life again by Aliki in this splendid, panoramic look at the amazing stories and characters of Greek legend. "[Will meet the] demand for basic information on the gods and goddesses at the primary level."—BL. "Aliki's fans will welcome her introduction to these famous Greeks."—SLJ. 1994 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

Corelli's Mandolin


Louis de Bernières - 1994
    Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn’t so bad—at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of “Heil Hitler” with his own “Heil Puccini”, and whose most precious possession is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches. British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the secondary characters with whom he populates his island—the drunken priest, the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins—would be at home in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.

Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary


Richard D. McKirahan - 1994
    It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and the special problems of interpretation they present.In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.

The Odyssey, Books 6-8 (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)


Homer - 1994
    While not neglecting matters of language and formulaic composition, the Commentary aims to provide guidance on questions of literary and narrative technique and poetic artistry. The Introduction deals with the problem of Homeric composition in general, and with the place of the Phaeacian books in the poem as a whole. There are also brief sections on Homeric meter and the text.

Wisdom Of The Mythtellers


Sean P. Kane - 1994
    Wisdom of the Mythtellers uncovers four kinds of ancestral dream-mapping: Native Australian, Native America, Celtic, and Greek.

Ancient Astrology


Tamsyn Barton - 1994
    An account of astrology from its beginnings in Mesopotamia, focusing on the Greco-Roman world, Ancient Astrology examines the theoretical development and changing social and political role of astrology.

An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature


Roderick Beaton - 1994
    It is the first full-length study to be devoted to the literature of this period seen as a whole and including developments up to thepresent day. No knowledge of Greek is assumed and all quotations are given both in Greek and in English.

Long Journey Home: Revisioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time


Christine Downing - 1994
    Considered today by many to be the archetypal myth for women, it touches on timeless themes in every life, such as the male-female relationship, love between women, initiations into puberty and old age, the mother-daughter bond, death, and ecological renewal. Christine Downing has combined essays, prose, poetry, and even performance art with her own insightful commentary to shed new light on the myth's ancient meanings and to offer new insights in its implications for contemporary men and women.

Plato's Ethics


Terence Irwin - 1994
    Plato's answer to the epistemological question, How can we know how we ought to live? is also discussed. His views on knowledge, belief, and inquiry, and his theory of Forms, are examined, insofar as they are relevant to his ethical view. Terence Irwin traces the development of Plato's moral philosophy, from the Socratic dialogues to its fullest exposition in the Republic. Plato's Ethics discusses Plato's reasons for abandoning or modifying some aspects of Socratic ethics, and for believing that he preserves Socrates' essential insights. A brief and selective discussion of the Statesmen, Philebus, and Laws is included. Replacing Irwin's earlier Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977), this book gives a clearer and fuller account of the main questions and discusses some recent controversies in the interpretation of Plato's ethics. It does not presuppose any knowledge of Greek or any extensive knowledge of Plato.

Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstitution of American Democracy


J. Peter EubenJennifer Roberts - 1994
    Such is the conviction expressed in this provocative book, which is certain to arouse widespread comment and discussion.What does it mean to be a citizen in a democracy? Indeed, how do we educate for democracy? These questions are addressed here by thirteen historians, classicists, and political theorists, who critically examine ancient Greek history and institutions, texts, and ideas in light of today's political practices and values. They do not idealize ancient Greek democracy. Rather, they use it, with all its faults, as a basis for measuring the strengths and shortcomings of American democracy. In the hands of the authors, ancient Greek sources become partners in an educational dialogue about democracy's past, one that goads us to think about the limitations of democracy's present and to imagine enriched possibilities for its future.The authors are diverse in their opinions and in their political and moral commitments. But they share the view that insulating American democracy from radical criticism encourages a dangerous complacency that Athenian political thought can disrupt.

Beyond The Aegean


Elia Kazan - 1994
    It is a pivotal moment in history. The First World War has barely ended. Greek forces are reclaiming Anatolia from the Turks. And Stavros Topouzoglou - who twenty years earlier, escaping the oppression of Turkish rule, fled to America only to discover the venality of his dream of an American lifedisembarks to reclaim his homeland. Here he will recast his life and rid himself of his obsession with the elegant American woman who has become for him the ultimate symbol of success. He will marry an Anatolian girl who will treat him like an "agha." He will have the life his father had. Stavros's energy and arrogance propel him to an astonishing success in his war-torn country. Deep in the interior of Anatolia, he meets the woman who he thinks will complete this new vision of himself - the fiercely independent Thomna. But he does not know that her passion matches his own of twenty years before - to get to America at any cost. His passion now is for Anatolia, and, bringing his mother and sister back from America, he pursues his fortune further into dangerous areas, behind the lines of combat - even when he learns that the Allies have deserted the Greeks, even after he loses his brother to the Greco-Turkish war. As the novel unfolds, we see Stavros and his dreams of wealth and home becoming inextricably entwined with the Greek causecompelling him, at the risk of sacrificing his life with Thomna, to a level of selflessness and heroism he has never before imagined. Beyond the Aegean is a novel dramatically, historically, and emotionally powerful, a novel that both stands uncompromisingly on its own and brings to a close Elia Kazan's commanding saga of one immigrant life.

The Senses Still


C. Nadia Seremetakis - 1994
    Anthropologist and award-winning author of The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani, C. Nadia Seremetakis brings together essays by five scholars concerned with the senses and the anthropology of everyday life. Covering a wide range of topics—from film to food, from nationalism to the evening news—the authors describe ways in which sensory memories have preserved cultures otherwise threatened by urbanism and modernity. The contributors are Susan Buck-Morss, Allen Feldman, Jonas Frykman, C. Nadia Seremetakis, and Paul Stoller.C. Nadia Seremetakis is Advisor to the Minister of Public Health in Greece and visiting professor at the National School of Public Heath in Athens. She is the author of The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani, available from the University of Chicago Press.

History Of Crete


Theocharēs Eustratiou Detorakēs - 1994
    

Penguin Dictionary of Ancient History


Graham Speake - 1994
    It includes entries on personalities, events, politics, literature, art and society.

A Literary Companion to Travel in Greece


Richard Stoneman - 1994
    Arrange topographically, the selections lead the reader from the Ionian Islands to Sparta and Attica, on to Northern Greece and the Aegean--conjuring up the history and wildness, the heat and beauty that have lured writers from Virgil to Henry Miller. Paintings, etchings, and drawings of Greece from the last three centuries have been added to the text in this new expanded edition.

The Parthenon Frieze


Ian Jenkins - 1994
    Designed by Phidias and carved by a team of anonymous masons, the frieze adorned the temple of Athena on the Acropolis and represents a festival procession in honour of the Olympian gods. Its original composition and precise meaning, however, have long been the subject of lively debate. Most of what survives of the frieze is now in the British Museum or the Acropolis Museum in Athens; the rest is scattered among a number of European collections. This book reconstructs the frieze in its entirety according to the most up-to-date research, with a detailed scene-by-scene commentary, and the superb quality of the carving is vividly shown in a series of close-up photographs. In his introduction Ian Jenkins places the frieze in its architectural, historical and artistic setting. He discusses the various interpretations suggested by previous scholars, and finally puts forward a view of his own.