Geography and Ethnography

Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies
Herausgeber: Raaflaub, Kurt A; Talbert, Richard J A

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of DiscoveryProvides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient IndiaExplores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials

---

Societies have typically reflected upon their place in the world in relation to the space in which they live, those who surround them, the universe, and divine forces that they believe determine their fate. In this fascinating volume, the editors bring together leading specialists who have analyzed the thoughts and records of a wide range of pre-modern societies from around the globe and across the ages. Some societies, like the Chinese, Greeks, and Arabs, have left extensive written cultural and scientific documentation. Others, as in India and Mesopotamia, used myth and epic for memory and understanding. Still others, such as the Incas and Aztecs, did not write, but their ideas and beliefs can be recovered from later narratives, as well as from their artwork, monuments, and shaping of the landscape. A wide range of common questions are examined, from evidence, interpretations, and methodology, to the way geographic and ethnographic concepts and views of the cosmos were developed and expressed. The resulting cross-cultural comparisons clearly describe the specific characteristics of these societies, how they differ and overlap. What emerges is a rich and astonishing variety of responses developed to meet universal challenges.

---

Hinweis: Dieser Artikel kann nur an eine deutsche Lieferadresse ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 384
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Februar 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 246mm x 178mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 798g
• ISBN-13: 9781405191463
• ISBN-10: 1405191465
• Artikelnr.: 31702271

Autorenporträt

Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History, at Brown University. His numerous publications include The Discovery of Freedom (2004) and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (2007, co-authored with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace). He is also the editor of Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (Blackwell, 2005), and War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of A Companion to Archaic Greece (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Richard J.A. Talbert is William Rand Kenan, Jr, Professor of History and Classics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000), and co-editor of Space in the Roman World: Its Perception and Presentation (2004), as well as of Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (2008). His major study Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered will appear in 2010.

Inhaltsangabe

List of Figures vii
Notes on Contributors xi
Series Editor's Preface xvii
1 Introduction 1
Richard J. A. Talbert and Kurt A. Raaflaub
2 Where the Black Antelope Roam: Dharma and Human Geography in India 9
Christopher Minkowski
3 Humans, Demons, Gods and Their Worlds: The Sacred and Scientific
Cosmologies of India 32
Kim Plofker
4 Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China 43
Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu
5 Nonary Cosmography in Ancient China 64
John B. Henderson
6 Knowledge of Other Cultures in China's Early Empires 74
Michael Loewe
7 The Mississippian Peoples' Worldview 89
Kathleen DuVal
8 Aztec Geography and Spatial Imagination 108
Barbara E. Mundy
9 Inca Worldview 128
Catherine Julien
10 Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens: Views of the Universe in
Early Mesopotamian Writings 147
Piotr Michalowski
11 The World and the Geography of Otherness in Pharaonic Egypt 169
Gerald Moers
12 On Earth as in Heaven: The Apocalyptic Vision of World Geography from
Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees 182
James M. Scott
13 'I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea': Geography
and Difference in the Early Greek World 197
Susan Guettel Cole
14 Continents, Climates, and Cultures: Greek Theories of Global Structure
215
James Romm
15 The Geographical Narrative of Strabo of Amasia 236
Daniela Dueck
16 The Roman Worldview: Beyond Recovery? 252
Richard J. A. Talbert
17 The Medieval Islamic Worldview: Arabic Geography in Its Historical
Context 273
Adam J. Silverstein
18 The Book of Curiosities: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian View of the Lands
of the Infidels 291
Emilie Savage-Smith
19 Geography and Ethnography in Medieval Europe: Classical Traditions and
Contemporary Concerns 311
Natalia Lozovsky
20 Europeans Plot the Wider World, 1500-1750 330
David Buisseret
Index 344

Rezensionen

"The basic premise, not to be dismissed, is that other'ancient' or 'pre-modern' societies can inform us about theClassical and Near Eastern progenitors of our own, if we areprepared to look and learn." (Ancient West and East,2014)"In sum, the editors, and the publisher, are to be congratulated onproducing, a stimulating volume which provides expert guidance tomany aspects of the foreign country which is the past."(Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science, 2011)

"The 20 papers originated in a workshop held at Brown Universityin March 2006 and fully reflect the series' world focus and broaddefinition of ancient societies." (CHOICE, July 2010)"Inspirational in conception, seamless in execution, andexemplary in cohesion, this book of twenty well-written essays onthe diversity of world views from antiquity to the sixteenthcentury has an important message for modern 'one world'globalism."
Catherine Delano-Smith, Institute of Historical Research,University of London