Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history of the ancient world, M.I. Finley's brilliant study remains, as classicist Bernard Knox notes in his introduction to this new edition, "as indispensable to the professional as it is accessible to the general reader"--a fundamental companion for students of Homer and Homeric Greece.

    Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse.The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.Up-to-date and brilliantly written, combining a lively narrative with the latest research and thirty illustrations, this superb volume reclaims the drama, the violence, and the tragedy of the fall of Rome.From Back Cover:For decades, the dominant view amongst historians has been that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, within a period of positive cultural evolution. Now, Bryan Ward-Perkins argues for what you always thought but didn't dare say: the Roman Empire really did fall to violent invasion; the 'transformation' of the Roman world saw a catastrophic collapse of living standards; and the 'Dark Ages' were genuinely sombre.

    It tells the hilarious story of the pleasure-seeking adventures of an educated rogue, Encolpius, his handsome serving boy, Giton, and Ascyltus, who lusts after Giton—three impure pilgrims who live by their wits and other men's purses. The Satyricon unfailingly turns every weakness of the flesh, every foible of the mind, to laughter.

    As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work.Table of Contents: The Secret of the Moat Farm (1924) The Murder on Yarmouth Sands (1924)The Great Bank of England Frauds (1924)The Trial of the Seddons (1924)Herbert Armstrong - Poisoner (1924)The Suburban Lothario (1928)Excerpt:"There is no more dangerous criminal than a small larcenist who has escaped the consequence of his offences, through, as he believes, his own dexterity and skill. Having this good opinion of himself, he progresses from crime to crime, until there comes a moment when he finds no other escape from the consequences of his meanness and folly than the destruction of a human life which, as he believes, stands between himself and freedom. And so confident is he in his own genius for evasion that he will plan the most diabolical of crimes, perfectly satisfied in his mind that the success which has attended the commission of minor offences will not desert his efforts to evade the penalty of his supreme villainy."

    The armies of North and South stand on the brink of America’s civil war. Nathanial Starbuck arrives in the capital of the Confederate South, where he enlists in an elite regiment. He is a northern boy fighting for the southern cause. But nothing can prepare him for the shocking violence to follow in the war which broke America in two.COPPERHEADNathanial Starbuck is a Copperhead: a northerner fighting for the rebel South in America’s Civil War. Expelled from the Faulconer Legion, Starbuck must travel a hard road before he can rejoin his comrades. His journey will take him through the savage prisons of Richmond, across the blood-sodden battlefields of Virginia, and into the deadly high command of the northern army.BATTLE FLAGThe epic battle for control of the Confederate capital continues through the hot summer of 1862. It’s a battle that Captain Nate Starbuck, a Yankee fighting for the Southern cause, has to survive and win.THE BLOODY GROUNDIt is late summer 1862 and the Confederacy is invading the United States of America.Nate Starbuck, a northern preacher’s son fighting for the rebel South, is given command of a punishment battalion – a despised unit of shirkers and cowards. His enemies expect it to be his downfall, as Starbuck must lead this ramshackle unit into a battle that will prove to be the bloodiest of the Civil War.

    Biers wrote The Archaeology of Greece to introduce students, teachers, and lay readers to the delights of exploring the world of ancient Greece. The great popularity of the first edition testifies to his success.In his preface to the second edition, Biers points out that, while the field of Greek archaeology may seem conservative and slow-moving, it has undergone major changes, especially in regard to work on the Bronze Age. The revised edition brings information on all areas up to date, reflecting the most recent research, and it includes cross references to Perseus II, the interactive electronic data base on Archaic and Classical Greece. This edition includes new illustrations, some of recent finds, some of improved plans, and others added to enhance an explanation or to illustrate a point.

    In prose that is rich, elegant, and sprinkled with learned references, Plutarch explores with an extraordinary degree of insight the interplay of character and political action. He portrays virtues to be emulated and vices to be avoided, but his purpose is implicitly to warn and educate those in his own day who wielded power. Plutarch brought to biography not only a clear moral objective, but also a natural storyteller's ear for a good anecdote. Influential in their own day, the Lives were drawn on by later historians and writers, including Shakespeare. This selection of nine Lives, chosen for their range and interest, offers a new translation as well as a lucid introduction and helpful notes and indexes.Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Agesilaus, Alexander

    Si todos debemos movernos para sobrevivir, vale la pena preguntarse: ¿qué factores de nuestro entorno nos impulsan a movernos y cuáles, por el contrario, nos detienen? ¿Por qué algunas personas tienen la oportunidad de moverse hacia donde quieren y otras no? ¿Por qué ciertas sociedades evolucionan y otras no? Para responder a estas interrogantes, los autores del libro estudiaron los códigos culturales y el comportamiento Bio-Lógico de 71 países para desarrollar un índice de que permite medir la movilidad social dentro de estas sociedades.Andrés Roemer y Clotaire Rapaille señalan que las culturas más exitosas son aquellas que han sabido preservar los mejores aspectos de su tradición, al mismo tiempo que han estado dispuestas a innovar y buscar nuevos horizontes. Se trata de sociedades abiertas al cambio y sin temor al statu quo. Otra clave del éxito evolutivo de las sociedades es el equilibrio entre el aspecto biológico (determinado por cuatro factores: supervivencia, sexo, seguridad y superación) y el aspecto cultural. El reto, concluyen los autores, es aprender a armonizar nuestros instintos (nuestro cerebro reptiliano) con nuestras emociones (nuestro cerebro límbico) y nuestra lógica (el neocórtex).ENGLISH DESCRIPTION If we all know we must move to survive, shouldn’t we ask ourselves which factors in our environment propel us and which halt us? Why do certain societies evolve while others don’t? In this book, Andrés Roemer and Clotaire Rapaille point out that the most successful cultures are those that are not afraid of the status quo: they have learned to preserve the best qualities of their traditions while being open to innovation and to uncovering new horizons. Another key to the success of these societies is the equilibrium between biological and the cultural aspects. The challenge is to harmonize our instincts, our emotions, and our logic.

    Escaping to a new life in Constantinople, the two land upon its shores lonely and penniless. Needing to make money fast, they plot and plan a number of outrageous money-making schemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet.Armed with a wicked plan to steal precious silk seeds from the faraway land of Seres, Nicander and Marius must embark upon a terrifyingly treacherous journey across unknown lands, never before completed. But first they must deceive the powerful emperor Justinian and the rest of his formidable Byzantine Empire in order to begin their journey into the unknown...An adventurous tale of mischief, humour and deception, Nicander and Marius face danger of the highest order, where nothing in the land of the Roman Empire is quite what it seems.

    

    In Evening Class, she applies her signature warmth, wit and understanding to something new--a wickedly funny book for anyone who's checked into the hospital, headed for an operation or convalesced at home. Maeve Binchy can always be counted on to spin an involving tale about ordinary people that brings out the extraordinary in everyone. Here, she zooms in on the working-class of Dublin. Schoolteacher Aidan Dunne organises an evening class in Italian with the help of Nora O'Donoghue, an Irishwoman returning home after 26 years in Sicily. When the somewhat squashed-by-life denizens of the surrounding neighbourhood take the unexpected step of enrolling in the class, they find their lives transformed. Binchy tells her story from the viewpoints of eight different characters and rewards both them and her readers with happy endings after the requisite rocky road. Reading a novel by Maeve Binchy is like catching up with old friends--you know everything will turn out fine in the end, but you're still interested in how things get that way.

    A note on how to interpret the information given in an apparatus criticus is also included.

    Introducing art in its international context, this accessible book explores core issues about how art is made, interpreted, and displayed, without any of the unnecessary terminology. Divided into themes, A Short Book About Art presents new ways of thinking about the relationship between artists and their work, as well as fresh comparisons between works of art from different periods and places. Thought-provoking and stimulating, it is the ideal companion for anyone who wants to learn about art without a dictionary in their hands.

    This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

    The explanation for this is quite simple: the elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat.In ancient Greece there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of anti-democratic thought. In Democracy, Paul Cartledge provides a detailed history of this ancient political system. In addition, by drawing out the salient differences between ancient and modern forms of democracy he enables a richer understanding of both.Cartledge contends that there is no one "ancient Greek democracy" as pure and simple as is often believed. Democracy surveys the emergence and development of Greek politics, the invention of political theory, and-intimately connected to the latter- the birth of democracy, first at Athens in c. 500 BCE and then at its greatest flourishing in the Greek world 150 years later. Cartledge then traces the decline of genuinely democratic Greek institutions at the hands of the Macedonians and-subsequently and decisively-the Romans. Throughout, he sheds light on the variety of democratic practices in the classical world as well as on their similarities to and dissimilarities from modern democratic forms, from the American and French revolutions to contemporary political thought. Authoritative and accessible, Cartledge's book will be regarded as the best account of ancient democracy and its long afterlife for many years to come.