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Did ancients ever haphazardly appropriate cultures like the Nazis did AND ruin those references for some time after?
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Oct 10, 2014 09:29
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Well, the Romans appropriated a lot of Greek stuff and the Ptolemids Egyptian stuff. Probably there are other examples.
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Oct 10, 2014 13:40
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KORNOLOGY posted:Did ancients ever haphazardly appropriate cultures like the Nazis did AND ruin those references for some time after? It's appropriations all the way down.
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Oct 10, 2014 22:17
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Is there a good, free copy of Water Margin or Journey to the West anywhere? Annotated for preference. Thanks in advance.
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Oct 10, 2014 22:21
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KORNOLOGY posted:Did ancients ever haphazardly appropriate cultures like the Nazis did AND ruin those references for some time after? I believe for pre-modern times we called it syncretism, not appropriation. Though just had the mental image of a unkempt upper class Roman youth with a handlebar mustache and wearing trousers saying, "Your devotion to the Cult of Isis is problematic."
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Oct 11, 2014 01:26
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Berke Negri posted:I believe for pre-modern times we called it syncretism, not appropriation. Also, when you beat up an older civ, it was customary to incorporate their gods into your pantheon, usually as subordinates. "Oh hey, you know Tiamat, the primordial demon of chaos? Our boy Marduk totally kicked her rear end, and so your gods said he could be the boss god. Which means you gotta pay tribute to us, too."
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Oct 11, 2014 05:03
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Simple question that's probably been asked many times here: What are some good books to read that cover all of republican rome? Obviously a bonus if it covers everyday life or their military conquest.
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Oct 11, 2014 08:31
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sullat posted:Also, when you beat up an older civ, it was customary to incorporate their gods into your pantheon, usually as subordinates. "Oh hey, you know Tiamat, the primordial demon of chaos? Our boy Marduk totally kicked her rear end, and so your gods said he could be the boss god. Which means you gotta pay tribute to us, too." IIRC they also literally stole gods - not just by conquest and looting statues and such, but by performing an appropriate ritual and saying, "your god's on our side now, suckers!  ".
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Oct 11, 2014 09:04
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VanSandman posted:Is there a good, free copy of Water Margin or Journey to the West anywhere? Annotated for preference. Thanks in advance.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:08
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Is there a crazy annotated version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Like the high school Shakespeare books where you'd have the play on the left page and nothing but annotations on the right. I've tried it multiple times now and it's just unreadable. Let's introduce 90 new characters all at once and surprise! None of them are relevant or show up again. Except number 53 in there he is super important so I hope you remember him in 600 pages. Makes me appreciate Homer. I bet if this story had started as an oral tradition it would've been slimmed the gently caress down to something more manageable.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:13
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Ive never read it, but Moss Robert's version is supposed to have a ton of notes.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:32
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Grand Fromage posted:Is there a crazy annotated version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Like the high school Shakespeare books where you'd have the play on the left page and nothing but annotations on the right. I've tried it multiple times now and it's just unreadable. Let's introduce 90 new characters all at once and surprise! None of them are relevant or show up again. Except number 53 in there he is super important so I hope you remember him in 600 pages. No joke, play Dynasty Warriors
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Oct 11, 2014 19:55
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Grand Fromage posted:Is there a crazy annotated version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Like the high school Shakespeare books where you'd have the play on the left page and nothing but annotations on the right. I've tried it multiple times now and it's just unreadable. Let's introduce 90 new characters all at once and surprise! None of them are relevant or show up again. Except number 53 in there he is super important so I hope you remember him in 600 pages. Joke's on you, it did start as an oral tradition of dudes reading it to live audiences. The book version was a compilation of all the oral traditions. The only annotated versions be in Chinese, but they're not really necessary. The structure of the book, the theme, is cycle. Every character plays a role and then cycles away, just like dynasties and time. This is pretty much how all these Chinese-style novels are structured. You don't have to remember all the names, just accept what the book tells you because all you need to know is being told to you explicitly. The point is, it all keeps repeating again and again just with different folks. It even says so in the beginning that's what's going happen. When western readers focus on a particular character or situation or expect a "plot structure", they're really missing the point. It's like reading "Journey to the West" and expecting that episode 73 of Xuanzang being captured by monsters has some special significance. It doesn't. That's not how these novel "compilers" thought about what they were doing at all. The pure MASS of characters is ITSELF part of the story. Homer, actually does this himself in someway when he uses the literary "list" (like when he lists out all the ships). He knows no one is going to really read/listen/remember all that poo poo, it's the pure force of all the words that makes his point. Ok, now expand that attitude to novel-size, now you get what's going on in Ming dynasty novels. But what if you're interested in the actual history, you might ask. In that case, English resources are all pretty much 30 years behind most recent research, so...yeah a bit out of luck with that. But the actual history of the period is recorded in the dynastic histories like Records of The Three Kingdoms, etc. and various private histories or alternate histories varying veracity and accuracy. These are structured in a very different way from western history or Chinese novels. These dynastic histories break events down into types and people. They then assiduously record the appropriate information for each category. Then you, the reader, should read the entire work quickly and thoroughly and gain the entire picture. This is a necessary process for understanding the period. There are no good western "summary sources" of the period as yet. Early commentators on Chinese historiography said this process is like "quickly walking along a fence and gathering a full picture through the cracks in the fence slats." That is, if you stop walking you can't see what's going on- you need to gulp it down and remember the entire impression. That's why they tended to memorize large chunks or copy out entire historical records as part of their education. They didn't expect to understand it as they memorized it, but to place it as an impression in their mind to be unlocked upon acquisition or upon meeting the appropriate situation in real life. This historiographical tradition is pretty much key to dealing with this stuff. You have to change your reading style to cope with it or it's too hard to understand. And there's a reason contemporaries looked down on the novel version- it's lovely fluff with no substance in comparison. Barto fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 20:23
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Imapanda posted:Simple question that's probably been asked many times here: What are some good books to read that cover all of republican rome? Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is exactly what the title says - it covers everything from start to finish, including the fall of the Kings, rise and fall of the Republic, rise of the Imperal era and eventual collapse. It's pretty drat old (written in the 18th Century) but covers a HUGE amount of material. For a more modern book, Tom Holland's Rubicon covers a significant portion of the Republic era, though it is more weighted towards everything from Marius through to Augustus, and obviously has a deeper focus on the stuff that there are more sources for - Sulla becoming Dictator, Pompey's rise to THE GREATness, Caesar and the Triumvirate etc. I don't know a good book for covering days of the everyday citizens, but the History of Rome podcast is also a very comprehensive start-to-finish series which did have episodes specifically devoted to everyday life that I would recommend having a listen to if you haven't already.
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Oct 12, 2014 04:08
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Jerusalem posted:Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is exactly what the title says - it covers everything from start to finish, including the fall of the Kings, rise and fall of the Republic, rise of the Imperal era and eventual collapse. It's pretty drat old (written in the 18th Century) but covers a HUGE amount of material. Which edition is this? I have the 6 volume set and Volume 1 Chapter I starts at 98AD...
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Oct 12, 2014 06:25
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Al Harrington posted:Which edition is this? I have the 6 volume set and Volume 1 Chapter I starts at 98AD... No you're right, I was completely misremembering it since I read it so soon after finishing the History of Rome podcast and obviously I kind of just ended up mixing up all the Republic era information I had in my head with what Gibbon was writing (which starts in the Age of the Antonines). So yeah, scratch that as a recommendation!
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Oct 12, 2014 07:14
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Do historians actually consider Gibbon to be worth anything beyond the perspective of an upper class Englishman from the 1700s? Doesn't he basically say Rome fell because of moral degeneracy? How is that worth reading, especially since it's like a thousand page tome?
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Oct 12, 2014 08:00
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He did a lot of pioneering work, and his actual description of events is more or less accurate. His conclusions and interpretations aren't believed anymore, but they are important for the history of historiography.
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Oct 12, 2014 08:03
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Has anybody in this thread read Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West? I picked it up based on the recommendation of history types from another web forum, and I absolutely loved it, even though its really, really dry. But half the footnotes seemed to be about how Peter Heather has it wrong, and I'm curious if anyone has read both and might have an opinion.
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Oct 12, 2014 08:30
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:Has anybody in this thread read Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West? I picked it up based on the recommendation of history types from another web forum, and I absolutely loved it, even though its really, really dry. But half the footnotes seemed to be about how Peter Heather has it wrong, and I'm curious if anyone has read both and might have an opinion. Its been a while since i read both (Halsall's book and Peter Heather's 'The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History.'), but from what i remember they disagree about why the Roman Empire 'fell'. Heather is more supportive of the idea that it happened because of barbarian migrations, downplaying the internal problems of the Roman Empire, while Halsall seems more inclined to acknowledge that the internal problems of the Roman Empire gave way for the barbarians to settle in Roman lands. Also, Halsall supported the idea that the invading people where more of an army, while Heather thinks that entire tribes settled in Roman land. It's also funny that Heather goes on about how wrong Halsall is in his 2010 book 'Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe'. So perhaps also read Heather's work to get a contrasting view?
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Oct 12, 2014 10:36
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icantfindaname posted:Do historians actually consider Gibbon to be worth anything beyond the perspective of an upper class Englishman from the 1700s? Doesn't he basically say Rome fell because of moral degeneracy? How is that worth reading, especially since it's like a thousand page tome? The stuff he wrote is pretty good, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your taste) the copy I got was interspersed with a HUGE amount of footnotes jammed in-between Gibbon's writing with little to distinguish where he stopped and they started. Lots of academic slapfights over conclusions and statements and slanging off previous translations with what I'm guessing were  excerpts of philosophers in the original Latin etc.
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Oct 12, 2014 12:02
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Charlie Mopps posted:It's also funny that Heather goes on about how wrong Halsall is in his 2010 book 'Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe'. So perhaps also read Heather's work to get a contrasting view? It's on my list of things to do, but I've been so tied up in space flight history it's absorbed all of my reading time.
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Oct 12, 2014 19:09
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Jerusalem posted:The stuff he wrote is pretty good, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your taste) the copy I got was interspersed with a HUGE amount of footnotes jammed in-between Gibbon's writing with little to distinguish where he stopped and they started. Lots of academic slapfights over conclusions and statements and slanging off previous translations with what I'm guessing were What I love (and hate) about pre-20th century editions of ancient books, e.g. the Iliad, is that everything including the editor's lengthy preface is written in the original Greek or Latin. Dudes back then knew their stuff. Octy fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 21:29
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icantfindaname posted:Do historians actually consider Gibbon to be worth anything beyond the perspective of an upper class Englishman from the 1700s? Doesn't he basically say Rome fell because of moral degeneracy? How is that worth reading, especially since it's like a thousand page tome? It actually goes into a hell of a lot more than just "the fall of rome" "The work covers the history of the Roman Empire, Europe, and the Catholic Church from 98 to 1590 and discusses the decline of the Roman Empire in the East and West." it's a very interesting read if you can take the time, just don't try to slam through it and don't try to read it as you're falling asleep free ebook editions exist, so there's no excuse to not give it a shot
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Oct 12, 2014 23:05
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I'm still waiting for some republican Rome book reccomendations since the previous 2 suggestions were actually about the empire/verylate republic. 
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Oct 13, 2014 04:11
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Tom Smykowski posted:Ive never read it, but Moss Robert's version is supposed to have a ton of notes. It does, although it's not crazy annotated, but they are all at the back of volume two, which is incredibly annoying when you're reading volume one. There's also this site which has lots of information but I don't know how good it is. One thing there doesn't seem to be is a synopsis saying things like "remember random dude 47, he'll be important later."
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Oct 13, 2014 05:03
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http://threekingdoms.com/ This site is what I used for the main text. It's the Brewitt-Taylor translation edited to change all the names (of locations and people) to Pinyin. There's ups and downs...mostly because the annotations are just random assholes on the Internet. I will say that the guy that is named "Explainer" knows his poo poo and will usually post an annotation every time someone new is introduced. I also thought it was kind of cute, if incredibly bizarre, how many of the commenters are 15 year old kids. I mean, I'm to chapter 68 out of 120 and they're still there holding their flame wars about whether or not Liu Bei was a backstabbing bastard with good PR. Even the novel, which loves it some Shu, can't really justify Liu Bei betraying and invading the territory of his cousin Liu Zhang and usurping his rule over the West River Lands.
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Oct 13, 2014 05:15
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Imapanda posted:I'm still waiting for some republican Rome book reccomendations since the previous 2 suggestions were actually about the empire/verylate republic. I'm trying to remember what I've got in my shop, and off the top of my head most of it tends to be Empire stuff. Patricia Southern has one that's decent enough, from memory http://www.amazon.com/ANCIENT-ROME-VOL-REPUBLIC-753BC-30BC/dp/1445604272 I'll have a look tomorrow when I'm in and try to come up with more of a list. Been on holiday for a week and the shelves are fuzzy in my mind.
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Oct 13, 2014 14:32
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Arglebargle III posted:Death in childbirth has been over hyped in modern literature. It happened but it was hardly killing every woman. Its over hyped but not as much as you would think. Mortality among children and women of childbearing age was much higher then in the general population given the records we have (which mostly show Royal and Noble families). But take a close look at how many children and married women die in a premedical age and you will be shocked
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Oct 14, 2014 03:22
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icantfindaname posted:Do historians actually consider Gibbon to be worth anything beyond the perspective of an upper class Englishman from the 1700s? Doesn't he basically say Rome fell because of moral degeneracy? How is that worth reading, especially since it's like a thousand page tome? I hate to double post but being on my phone in an airport means I can't edit nicely. Gibbon is still widely respected for two reasons, he created modern histrography and pretty much every work after him follows the same format for how they put out information and the fact his history was insanely accurate for someone writing in the 1700s with the sources he had to work with (all of which he cits). The study of history would greatly suffer without him.
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Oct 14, 2014 03:33
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There's presently a National Geographic special edition about the Roman Empire, which somehow I persuaded myself to buy this afternoon despite it being a physical magazine, something I haven't bought in years. I haven't read it in great detail yet, but I haven't found anything wildly wrong in scanning a few articles. There are a few pieces about the Republic that imply correlations with the American system of government which I don't think are quite on the mark. Sometimes things are a bit understated ("Pursued by armed forces sent by his opponents, Gaius [Gracchus] committed suicide."). Sometimes things are kind-of-true-but-kind-of-not. ("Blood sports continued to be central to Roman life, especially after the Flavian emperor Vespasian built the giant ampitheater we know as the Colosseum.") On the bright side, quite a lot of there's lots of interesting photographs and no advertisements other than an ad on the back page for more National Geographic. (This might seem like a shallow thing to praise it for, but I think a bevy of high-quality photographs are the thing that a magazine has which books and media-on-a-smartphone don't.) You could make a worse $14 impulse buy about Rome.
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Oct 14, 2014 04:54
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sbaldrick posted:Gibbon is still widely respected for two reasons, he created modern histrography and pretty much every work after him follows the same format for how they put out information and the fact his history was insanely accurate for someone writing in the 1700s with the sources he had to work with (all of which he cits). The study of history would greatly suffer without him. How accurate is "insanely?" If Gibbon wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, today, would it stand among contemporary works without looking too pale in comparison? I know this means ignoring the effect he had on modern historians.
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Oct 14, 2014 07:50
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The actual facts are generally accurate, since he had more or less the same sources we do today. He didn't have the benefit of extensive archaeology but did have all the same written accounts (I believe; I don't think anything major about that period has been discovered since). The conclusions range from pretty good to what the gently caress. I, personally, would not recommend it as your first book on that era. Get Peter Heather's and the guy who is anti Peter Heather and read those two. Read some more stuff, then get to Gibbon. That "stuff" is vague because I haven't read enough about late antiquity either but I know some of you nerds have and can fill in!
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Oct 14, 2014 12:28
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Grand Fromage posted:all the same written accounts (I believe; I don't think anything major about that period has been discovered since). Depends on how you define "major source." If you're talking about complete (or major fragments) manuscripts of literary/historical writings, then you're probably right. fake edit: poo poo, not exactly roman-centric, but the Dead Seas Scrolls were found in the 40s. On the other hand we've got things like the Vindolanda tablets and god knows how many scraps of papyri dug up from ancient midden heaps.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:27
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Gibbon's history is kind of like reading a textbook on medicine from 1960. Nearly everything in it is in line with current evidence and deductions and such, but there's also huge amounts that are wrong in a specific way only because people have specifically researched them more in the ensuing time.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:29
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Cyrano4747 posted:Depends on how you define "major source." If you're talking about complete (or major fragments) manuscripts of literary/historical writings, then you're probably right. I was thinking like a new history book covering part of that period that Gibbon wouldn't have had access to.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:34
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Grand Fromage posted:The actual facts are generally accurate, since he had more or less the same sources we do today. He didn't have the benefit of extensive archaeology but did have all the same written accounts (I believe; I don't think anything major about that period has been discovered since). The conclusions range from pretty good to what the gently caress. I wouldn't recommend Heather's as the best starting place either as he makes some jumps that archaeology doesn't back up. The best place to jump in is one of the giant Cambridge of Oxford survey histories.
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Oct 14, 2014 19:10
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I really liked Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West. Like we just went over a page ago, I don't really know how it compares to Heather's work, but it still sticks out in my head as one of the better books I've ever read. Pretty extensively covers the actual events that transpired during the fall of the Empire in the west, and all the factors that played into it, along with a hefty section on ethnogenesis, which is exceedingly relevant. This all comes at the cost of being a full fledged textbook - it's part of the Cambridge series - and priced accordingly. A quick peek on Amazon shows $110CAD hardcover, $45CAD paperback. As a side note, I found there was so much going on during the retelling of the events that I actually started taking notes so that I'd remember who everyone was and their relationships to everyone else. In classic note taking fashion, I never actually had to reference them, it was just the act of writing them down that forced me to remember them. 
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Oct 14, 2014 22:02
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sbaldrick posted:I wouldn't recommend Heather's as the best starting place either as he makes some jumps that archaeology doesn't back up. The best place to jump in is one of the giant Cambridge of Oxford survey histories. Just gonna sidle in here and pimp Adrian Goldsworthy's Fall of the West again.
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Oct 15, 2014 05:34
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Another thing we really need here is a good history of the Crisis of the Third Century. Barbarian Migrations only kicks off in 376 with the Gothic War, but I suspect it would be helpful to get some context on why the Empire in the West fell in 476 (depending on your point of view, maybe earlier, quite possibly later), and not in 271.
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Oct 15, 2014 06:21
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