Tag: ancient history

Enlightening the Enlightenment

Enlightening the Enlightenment

Dare to Know was a New York Times Best Art Book of 2022 Elizabeth M. Rudy — How can the organization of a book about the Enlightenment convey the period’s… READ MORE

The First Tycoon

The First Tycoon

“The marble busts that now appear stark, blank stones were once painted in vivid colors that made them seem fully human. The Ancient Lives series is founded on the conviction that what… READ MORE

Demetrius, The First Celebrity Politician

Demetrius, The First Celebrity Politician

“We are very excited to add Ancient Lives to Yale’s successful series of interpretive biographies as a fresh way of telling history. Imagining ancient lives is a way to recapture not only the… READ MORE

Gilgamesh in the Twenty-first Century

Gilgamesh in the Twenty-first Century

Sophus Helle— “Gilgamesh is tremendous!” the poet Rainer Maria Rilke exclaimed in 1916. “I hold it to be the greatest thing a person can experience.” Many modern readers have shared… READ MORE

Founding God’s Nation

Founding God’s Nation

Leon R. Kass— Exodus, the second of the Five Books of Moses (The Torah), contains some of the most famous stories in Western literature: the enslavement of the Children of… READ MORE

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh

John Carey— The oldest surviving literary work is The Epic of Gilgamesh. It was composed nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (roughly equivalent to where Iraq and eastern Syria… READ MORE

What Is Wisdom?

What Is Wisdom?

Giambattista Vico— Wisdom is the faculty that commands all the disciplines; by these, all the sciences and arts that complete our humanity are apprehended. Plato defines wisdom as that which is… READ MORE

Western Ambivalence toward Iran

Western Ambivalence toward Iran

By Abbas Amanat — The Persians, and before them the Medes, were among the first people known to the ancient Greeks outside their own geographic sphere. As early as the… READ MORE

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